As Arne Slott heads home down the M62 on a Sunday afternoon, she doesn’t just worry about getting her coat dry. Liverpool and Manchester City, who have dominated the Premier League title race for the past eight seasons, displayed a stark contrast in class when they clashed at the Etihad.
Despite regaining their footing with back-to-back wins over Aston Villa and Real Madrid, Liverpool were quickly defeated by a formidable City side in Josep Guardiola’s 1,000th game in charge. The Reds were dominated all over the pitch. This lackluster performance is another blow in a season that is rapidly deteriorating for Slott, with two players giving him major headaches.
Liverpool’s defensive struggles have been well known this season, with Milos Kerkes replacing him on the bench. Meanwhile, Jeremy Frimpong’s injury has allowed Conor Bradley to secure his place in the squad.
Bradley had performed admirably against Real Madrid’s Vinicius Junior earlier in the week, but even he struggled to keep up with the inspired Jeremy Doku. Doc was a persistent thorn in Liverpool’s side and scored City’s third goal with a brilliant attack reminiscent of that typically seen in Mohamed Salah.
However, the slot will have to deal with the centre-back combination of Ibrahima Konate and Virgil van Dijk.
Van Dijk’s performance level has declined this season. He may have felt bad about having the goal canceled, but saving City’s second goal was inexcusable. Driving back toward his own goal, the Dutchman made a feeble attempt to block with his heel, but Giorgi Mamadashvili tripped.
City cited Konate as their main weakness, giving the Frenchman time to hold onto the ball, but felt he could not do much if he did. Konate recorded the most touches on the pitch in the first 30 minutes.
Konate were poor defensively. Liverpool conceded an early penalty, but Erling Haaland missed it and was responsible for being hit in the air by the Norwegian for the opening goal. He didn’t do too well in the remaining 90 minutes either.
Liverpool lack depth in defense, which is why Slott wanted Marc Gehi, but something needs to change. Whether it’s personnel, Joe Gomez coming into play, or formations to give them extra defensive coverage.
The Reds have now lost five of their last six Premier League games and are behind Ruben Amorim’s Manchester United, leaving a huge gap between them and league leaders Arsenal.
With Nottingham Forest at home, West Ham away and Sunderland at home in the Premier League, Liverpool’s upcoming fixtures look set to be more favorable. All three games were important wins and anything else would be unacceptable for both Slott and Liverpool.
