Jamie Carragher immediately expressed his concerns over Arne Slot’s tactics after Liverpool had won their opening game of the new season against Bournemouth. So he was never going to hold back after watching the disturbingly ragged Reds slump to a second consecutive defeat in Tuesday’s Champions League clash with Galatasaray.
“I don’t feel like I’m watching a top team,” Carragher told CBS Sports after watching his former side lost 1-0 at RAMS Park. “Liverpool are not playing football at the moment, they are playing basketball. It’s just end-to-end, and I don’t think top teams play like that.
“I expressed that to the manager early on. He’s obviously a fantastic manager but while Liverpool were a top team last season, they were also a workman-like team, and they’ve sprinkled a bit of stardust on it, in terms of the transfers they have brought in.
“But they haven’t gained anything going forward, and they’ve lost a lot defensively. So, I think for the manager now, last season was such a smooth ride for him, that he’s now got to really earn his money. He did last season, by winning the Premier League, which was unbelievable.
“But there are few problems he has got to fix, and it will be really interesting to see how he goes about it, because he’s spent a lot of money on certain players. But, right now, the balance of the team is not right.”
So, what exactly are the problems facing Slot as he looks to avoid losing three games on the spin for the first time since arriving at Anfield in the summer of 2024? And can they all be resolved ahead of Saturday’s suddenly daunting trip to Stamford Bridge to take on Chelsea? Below, GOAL takes an in-depth look at Liverpool, who are top of the Premier League and yet looking increasingly disjointed the longer this season goes on.
Floundering Florian Wirtz
Liverpool spent more than £400m on new signings during the summer but, for one reason or another, Hugo Ekitike is the only one to have made an instant impact on the first team.
Given the money spent on Florian Wirtz and the fact that he’s yet to contribute a single goal or assist, the German’s starting spot has come under the most scrutiny so far and Carragher even went so far as to argue that the £100m man should be benched this weekend.
“He’s just not at the races at all,” the former defender said on CBS. “He’s a young boy, coming to a new league, and has plenty of time to go as a Liverpool player.
“But, right now, I think he needs to come out of the team, Liverpool go back to what they were last season, and then go from there and try to build some confidence and some defensive stability because, right now, it looks like a mess.”
Some of the criticism being levelled at Wirtz has been over the top. Indeed, it’s worth noting that the only Premier League player to have created as many chances in all competitions this season (21) is Jack Grealish, who is being lauded right now for his return to form at Everton.
However, there is no denying that Wirtz has struggled with the intensity of English football – Slot has admitted as much himself – and looks like a pale imitation of the thrilling attacking talent that illuminated Bundesliga and Champions League games for Bayer Leverkusen.
Even Carragher has acknowledged that Wirtz cannot be held solely accountable for Liverpool’s defensive frailties this term, though, and the fact that the hugely influential Alexis Mac Allister has been in and out of the starting line-up because of his fitness problems hasn’t aided the 22-year-old’s integration at all.
Nonetheless, Slot has a big call to make on Saturday because playing a proper No.10 like Wirtz instead of a more industrious attacking midfielder like Dominik Szoboszlai has undeniably affected Liverpool’s general solidity due to the issues elsewhere.
Cody Gakpo’s dramatic dip in form
Slot put Wirtz on the left-hand side of his attack for last weekend’s loss at Crystal Palace in what was an ill-advised attempt to shoehorn the Germany international into this starting line-up. However, it was also reflective of Cody Gakpo’s very sudden struggles.
After looking perfectly placed in pre-season to fill the void left by Luis Diaz on Liverpool’s left wing, Gakpo hit the ground running, with the Dutchman directly involved in three goals in his first two Premier League games of the current campaign. Unfortunately, he’s looked painfully predictable since then, with full-backs very much wise to the fact that all Gakpo wants to do is cut inside onto his favoured right foot to get a shot away.
As a result, his demotion to the bench for the game at Selhurst Park came as no surprise and he didn’t exactly make a compelling case for a Premier League recall with his performance in Istanbul. Indeed, there’s every chance that Slot would have started Ekitike on the left-hand side at Stamford Bridge to accommodate Alexander Isak through the middle.
However, with the in-form Frenchman (the one bright spark up front against Gala) expected to miss the trip to west London through injury, Gakpo will likely get another opportunity to prove his worth, as it’s hard to see Rio Ngumoha starting against the club he left in such acrimonious circumstances – even if the 17-year-old appears utterly impervious to pressure.
The bottom line is that Slot could really do with Gakpo vindicating Liverpool’s decision to sell Diaz to Bayern Munich.
Alexander Isak’s injury and involvement issues
Ekitike’s probable unavailability for a second consecutive Premier League outing is hardly ideal from a striking perspective either.
Of course, unlike his “stupid” suspension for the game at Palace, Ekitike’s absence against Chelsea is not his fault, with the former Eintracht Frankfurt forward having been forced off with a muscular problem at RAMS Park. The net result, though, is that Slot doesn’t really have any other option than to start Isak at Stamford Bridge, even though he’s still nowhere near fully match fit.
The Swede’s summer strike may have belatedly forced Newcastle to sell him to Liverpool but his total lack of a pre-season has been there for all to see in his first five outings for his new club. Isak has just one goal to his name – against Championship side Southampton in the Carabao Cup – and has yet to complete 90 minutes once. It’s unlikely, then, that he’ll last the entire game at the Bridge.
However, what’s imperative is that Liverpool get Isak into the game more while he’s on the field. There was still half an hour to play when he came on against Galatasaray but even though Wirtz gave him a sight of goal with a lovely ball over the top just minutes after Isak’s introduction, he would only touch the ball four times in total.
Interestingly, that disturbing lack of involvement might well convince Slot to stick with Wirtz in the No.10 role, as the 22-year-old linked very well with Isak during their time on the field together in the 3-2 win over Atletico Madrid.
Alexis Mac Allister’s still playing catch-up
There have been understandable calls for Liverpool to go back to basics against Chelsea and restore the midfield three that played such a pivotal role in last season’s title triumph. However, while Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai are fully fit right now, Alexis Mac Allister is still not right physically.
It wasn’t meant to be like this, of course. As Slot has stated, Liverpool brought a premature end to Mac Allister’s 2024-25 campaign “to have him ready for the first day of pre-season”.
However, the Argentine’s nagging muscular problem took longer than expected to heal. “As a result of that,” Slot explained last week, “he walks behind the music, as we say in Holland, while you say, he’s playing catch-up”.
Based on what we’ve seen so far from Mac Allister, that’s still very much the case. He may have started all five of Liverpool’s Premier League games to date, but he’s not lasted more than 65 minutes since missing the 3-2 win at Newcastle in August and he was way off the pace after coming on for the final half hour in midweek.
The Reds clearly need Mac Allister at Chelsea. One could easily argue he was their most reliable performer over the previous two seasons and there’s a very real possibility that we won’t see the best of the new Liverpool until we see the return of the old Mac Allister.
So, Slot needs to decide if starting the World Cup winner in west London in his current condition is a risk worth taking, especially as the much-maligned Curtis Jones was one of the few players to perform at an acceptable level against Gala.
The uncertainty at full-back
Alongside Mac Allister and Isak, Conor Bradley is the other player that Slot repeatedly namecheck as not having had a proper pre-season due to injury.
The Irishman’s issues are hardly a surprise, though. There were concerns over his ability to stay fit for a significant spell of time last season, which is why there were also doubts over his ability to succeed Trent Alexander-Arnold as Liverpool’s first-choice right-back.
The club’s decision to go out and sign Jeremie Frimpong from Leverkusen, thus, made an awful lot of sense. However, despite having two potential stars competing for the same slot, neither has managed to make it their own.
Frimpong has been hindered by injury himself, with a hamstring injury ruling him out for two league games, but it also has to be said that he’s looked defensively vulnerable even when fully fit, and also worryingly one-dimensional in attack. Bradley, meanwhile, still hasn’t lost his annoying – and potentially costly – habit of picking up silly bookings.
All of the above explains why Slot has been experimenting with Szoboszlai at right-back – which is just the most damning indictment of Frimpong and Bradley’s contributions so far. Furthermore, the fact that Andy Robertson, who exhibited obvious signs of decline last season, might be recalled on Saturday also reflects badly on Milos Kerkez, who has yet to settle at Anfield – just like Frimpong.
Given the uncertainty around both full-back berths, then, all we can say for sure right now is that Slot needs to get his selections for Stamford Bridge spot on, as Chelsea’s main threat without Cole Palmer is likely to come on the flanks.
The Ibrahima Konate conundrum
There’s no getting away from the fact that Liverpool’s biggest issue right now isn’t the full-backs, or even Wirtz’s role, it’s Ibrahima Konate.
Given the Frenchman’s expiring contract, the hope was that he would use this season to show why he believes he’s undervalued. Instead, he’s illustrating precisely why the Reds tried to sign Marc Guehi.
Indeed, the collapse of the England international’s agreed move from Crystal Palace is, as feared, looking more and more like a potentially devastating sliding-doors moment in Liverpool’s season, because the contrast in their performances at Selhurst Park last Saturday was stark.
While Guehi was coping with almost everything that the champions threw at him (before later setting up the winning goal for Eddie Nketiah), Konate was getting dominated by Jean-Philippe Mateta. Worse was to follow in Istanbul, with a typically sloppy pass from Konate leading to the chance that resulted in Alisson picking up an injury.
If Joe Gomez is fit (and that’s always a big ‘if’), he should start ahead of Konate against Chelsea because the former RB Leipzig defender is presently making at least one big error in each and every game – and Slot already has enough problems to be worrying about right now.
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