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Beth Lindop
Multiple Authors
BRIGHTON & HOVE, England — Will the real Liverpool please stand up? There has perhaps been no better encapsulation of the Reds’ Jekyll and Hyde nature than these past four days.
Irresistible against Galatasaray in midweek, Arne Slot’s side once again faltered on its return to Premier League action, losing 2-1 away to an impressive Brighton & Hove Albion. Liverpool’s maddening inconsistency has seen them feebly surrender their league title this term, and their latest misstep could yet have fatal repercussions in their pursuit of UEFA Champions League qualification.
As the clock ticked toward full time on Saturday afternoon, Liverpool found themselves with two midfielders playing in defense and their most potent attacking threat coming in the guise of 17-year-old Rio Ngumoha. It was a damning reflection of a campaign that has largely been defined by chaos and devoid of the control that propelled the Reds to the title last season.
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Liverpool have now lost 10 league matches this season — their highest number since the 2015-16 campaign, when Jurgen Klopp replaced Brendan Rodgers midseason. Their current tally of 42 goals conceded is already higher than the number shipped in each of the last two seasons.
After writing his way into the history books for all of the right reasons, Slot now finds himself the regular breaker of unwanted new ground. Wednesday’s Champions League mauling of Galatasaray helped to dissipate the tension that mounted in the wake of last weekend’s insipid draw with Tottenham Hotspur, after which Slot and his players were booed by some of the home supporters at Anfield. But confidence and belief on Merseyside is brittle this season, and Liverpool’s latest showing will have done little to convince Slot’s critics that he is the best man for the job in the long run.
Admittedly, the Reds’ preparation for their trip to Brighton was not ideal. Both Mohamed Salah and goalkeeper Alisson Becker were lost to injury, while Slot’s side had around 60 hours to recover from their European exploits. The difference in fitness between the visitors and their hosts — Brighton had not played since their visit to Sunderland last Saturday — was glaring, although that does not absolve Liverpool of their lackluster performance.
Neither does the fact that top scorer Hugo Ekitike was forced off with a dead leg inside the first eight minutes, although that did not help Liverpool’s cause. The Premier League champions only had themselves to blame when a miscommunication between goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili and center back Ibrahima Konaté led to the concession of a needless throw-in that opened the door for a Danny Welbeck goal against the run of play inside 14 minutes.
Milos Kerkez capitalized on a Lewis Dunk error to restore parity after half an hour, but by the time Welbeck struck again in the second half, it was hard to argue Brighton didn’t deserve it. Were it not for a couple of excellent saves by Mamardashvili after the interval, Liverpool could have been on the end of a much more chastening scoreline.
Perhaps the biggest worry for Slot will be how toothless his team looked in attack. Curtis Jones and Cody Gakpo both forced saves from Bart Verbruggen, but rarely did the Brighton defence look unduly troubled.
The Liverpool boss has often pointed to the opposition’s willingness to sit deep and soak up the pressure as a reason for his team’s lack of creative spark, but that excuse does not suffice here. Brighton are one of the few Premier League teams still willing to engage on the front foot and the Reds still struggled to carve out clear-cut chances.
For the 27th time in 31 league games this season, Liverpool were outrun by their opponents, with only Chelsea (30) faring worse in that department. Such metrics should not always be used as the barometer for success — Liverpool were outrun in 26 out of 38 Premier League games in 2021-22 and got 92 points — but in conjunction with this season’s poor results, they don’t make for pleasant reading.
“I could come up and tell you all the reasons why we have lost this season,” Slot said. “You just heard about late goals and I think today sums it all up in terms of injury problems in this season. To go without three great goal scorers never helped any team and against the right fullback position.
“That’s not my job to find excuses. My job is to find answers, and that’s what I tried to do again today. That worked out, in my opinion, not too bad in the first 45 minutes because we were playing with them, and we were in my opinion close. They were a few times close, we were a few times close. In the second half they were the better team.”
Too often this season, Liverpool have been second best. Too often they have failed to turn the corner when the moment has seemed opportune to do so.
Too often, Slot and his players have simply not risen to the occasion. That, at present, is the real Liverpool.
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