The trip to Crystal Palace began a run of five away trips in six games and Liverpool have now lost the first two. Their results across the first 80 minutes of their games this season: 2-2, 2-2, 2-1, 0-0, 0-0, 2-2, 2-1, 1-1, 0-1, 0-1. It all just feels a little flat outside those moments of late drama.
Too much unfamiliarity
Last season, Liverpool brought one player into their first team squad: Federico Chiesa. He played only 104 league minutes, starting one game (against Brighton in the penultimate league game when the title was already won). Slot was the surprise factor – his football, his style, his ability to create a prodigious three-man midfield and continue getting the best out of Mohamed Salah.
“It’s a bad night for Liverpool” @LaurensJulien assesses a tough night in Istanbul for Arne Slot’s side @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/wO7VxvXWF9
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) September 30, 2025There’s no question that Liverpool have this the right way round: if they had bought so many new players last summer, and had a new manager, it could easily have caused Slot to sink and struggle to keep his job. But it presents a very different – and very difficult – challenge.
Missing Trent Alexander-Arnold
Alexander-Arnold’s defensive struggles became a point of contention over the last two years, but he was a plug-in-and-play solution at right-back who could overlap, invert into midfield or stay deeper as the situation demanded.
So far this season, Slot has picked Dominik Szoboszlai as his right-back for three league games, Conor Bradley for two and Jeremie Frimpong for one. Frimpong is the new signing, but it’s hard to see how he and Salah can play in combination without leaving space behind for teams to exploit on the counter attack.
Galatasaray has to be a wake-up call (Photo: AP)If that wasn’t enough, Milos Kerkez is also struggling to combine his attacking and defensive duties on the other side. We became so used to Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson as two of Liverpool’s elite creators. Now it’s hard to know who is first-choice right-back and Kerkez has created three chances in six matches.
So why have Liverpool changed Salah’s role? Last season, his success was predicated on being able to move into central positions, with both the central and left-sided strikers tending to dovetail together. Salah operated more on the right side of the pitch than the right wing.
The arrival of two central strikers has, for now, turned Salah into more of a winger and that doesn’t make much sense.
Central defensive issues
Konate is struggling. Slot is asking him to step out into midfield with the ball more, but he’s both failing to make that work and also repeatedly being caught in transition, either slow to react to attacking runs or in the wrong position to start with. Jean-Philippe Mateta bullied him last weekend.
Too slow through midfield
Liverpool’s heat map against Crystal Palace was damning.
Liverpool's heat map against Crystal Palace looks like Zig and Zag's cousin pic.twitter.com/980eu6JI1Q
— Daniel Storey (@danielstorey85) October 1, 2025Liverpool are having much more of the ball this season, up from an average of 57.7 per cent in 2024-25 to 64.0 per cent. But remember: possession is simply calculated as the ratio of passes your team makes vs the opposition. Liverpool are making more passes, sure, but they are also taking shots less often, taking their shots from two yards further out on average and are having 20 per cent fewer touches of the ball in the opposition penalty area.
How much of that predictability is down to Florian Wirtz failing to make a difference so far? The German is yet to provide a goal or assist in his eight Premier League and Champions League appearances so far.
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Read MoreBut therein lies the issue: Wirtz is being given huge licence to roam both centrally and deep – he’s having almost three times as many touches as Salah in the middle third of the pitch. He’s having 50 per cent more touches than Salah in general.
The midfield shape and the patterns of play have been shifted to make Wirtz the critical creative influence, so that when he doesn’t deliver it causes Liverpool to get a little stuck, freezes Salah out a little on the right wing and stymies the service to the centre-forward.
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