Liverpool spent £400m and still have three holes in their squad ...Middle East

Liverpool won the Premier League at a canter last season and are once again top of the table.

Yet Arne Slot has more than a little food for thought, not least the impact of Saturday’s defeat to Crystal Palace – sealed by Eddie Nketiah’s 97th-minute winner.

But then the Dutchman knows all about late drama: this season, all Liverpool’s victories bar one have come by a single goal, scored in the 100th, 83th, 95th, 92th, 29th and 85th minute respectively.

Even when they beat Bournemouth 4-2 on the opening weekend, the game was level until the 88th minute.

The result is that Liverpool’s haul of 15 points in six league games, a run of five wins ended by Eddie Nketiah, seems to flatter them, despite a summer net spend of around £260m (and a gross of more than £400m).

Only one of those big-money signings, Hugo Ekitike, has really hit the ground running and three significant holes in Liverpool’s squad were highlighted again by Palace on Saturday.

Slot has only one trustworthy centre-half

The biggest worry for Liverpool fans must surely be centre-back, where Ibrahima Konate does not currently merit his place but starts by default, because his deputy is Joe Gomez, a player Liverpool were willing to let leave this summer.

Konate was tormented by Jean-Philippe Mateta on Saturday, and when he was eventually replaced, midfielder Ryan Gravenberch moved to partner Virgil van Dijk, which cannot be a long-term solution.

“Him and Van Dijk have been a good partnership and have done really well together, but his individual errors at this moment in time [are] just making the back line look a little bit nervy,” said ex-England defender Micah Richards on Match of the Day.

“Liverpool are always good in defence, Van Dijk always marshals the back line, but they give Palace too many opportunities for no actual reason. It was just being sloppy, and that’s so unlike Liverpool.”

Marc Guéhi assist, Eddie Nketiah finish. Beating Liverpool to remain unbeaten right at the end. Scenes.Powered by @SunExpress Airlines pic.twitter.com/nSd6sOkVbX

Beyond Gomez, no one could have predicted the ACL injury suffered by Giovanni Leoni, but the 18-year-old was a signing for the future anyway. His absence leaves Liverpool alarmingly thin in central defence: after Gomez, the next cab off the rank is Rhys Williams, who spent last season on loan at Morecambe in League Two.

There was no shortage of irony that Liverpool were undone by failing to clear two Palace set pieces, and that it was Marc Guehi who won the header for the winner. Were it not for a year-long game of brinksmanship that Liverpool lost, Guehi would have been defending not attacking that long throw.

The problems do not end there.

Conor Bradley is a work in progress and was hooked at half-time at Selhurst Park for another midfielder, Dominik Szoboszlai, to play there. Substitute Jeremie Frimpong is at least a natural in that position, but his stock will have fallen after Slot blamed him for leaving Nketiah free to score in stoppage time. Trent Alexander-Arnold’s absence is already being keenly felt.

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Is Milos Kerkez really deserving of a starting place?

And the other side of back line, Milos Kerkez has already been the subject of a first-half hook this season after getting booked at Burnley because Slot did not trust him to avoid a second one. He is still though keeping Andy Robertson out of the team, but no one is quite sure why.

“It was the basics that we didn’t do well,” Van Dijk said after defeat to Palace.

“Sometimes you can have these days. Hopefully this is the only day this season that we do that.”

After all the money Liverpool have spent, the pressure is on to make sure these days don’t start adding up.

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