Three months have passed since then, and it has already been a season of ups and downs for Liverpool.
It was a five-game winning streak en route to the team’s defense of the Premier League title. After that, we lost 4 consecutive times.
Impressive events before the international break 1-0 victory over Real Madrid In the Champions League, it was celebrated as a comeback of sorts. It was quickly shot down in mind-boggling circumstances Lost 3-0 to Manchester City — Arne Slot has had to ponder this outcome for the past two weeks.
The eight-point gap with league leaders Arsenal is certainly not insurmountable, but as things stand, it is more likely that the gap will widen rather than narrow.
It looks like the time has come for the English champions to start playing as one, starting with Saturday’s home match against Nottingham Forest.
This begins a good year-end fixture for Liverpool, with fixtures against West Ham, Sunderland, Leeds, Brighton, Tottenham, Wolves and Leeds again scheduled until January 1st.
Unless the Reds can somehow improve their form over the next six weeks, their hopes of retaining their first league title since 1984 may be over.
major matches
Sunday’s north London derby will see Arsenal host Tottenham in a high-profile match.
Arsenal’s 10th consecutive win and 8th consecutive clean sheet record. 2-2 draw against Sunderland Before the international break.
Tottenham have won just one of their last meetings since December 2020.
Manchester City will first face Newcastle in Saturday’s final game, with a win to reduce the gap to just one point.
Featured players
Man City striker Erling Haaland hot streak It doesn’t seem like it’s going to end. He has scored four more goals for Norway in the past week, taking his tally to 32 in just 20 games for club and country in all competitions.
There were only two games in which he did not score.
Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker has missed the last six weeks with a hamstring injury, but looks set to return against Forest, replacing Giorgi Mamadashvili.
This should help strengthen Liverpool’s tight defence, which has conceded 17 goals so far in the league. All you have to do is watch a team concede more points after 11 games.
Activity suspended
Arsenal defender Gabriel Magalhães is likely to be sidelined for some time after sustaining a thigh injury while playing for Brazil last week. The centre-back will be a big miss as he is the Gunners’ rock at the back and is a big threat from set pieces, but there are decent back-up options in summer signings Cristian Mosquera and Piero Hincapie.
Manchester United’s Benjamin Sesco is likely to miss out after sustaining a knee injury in the draw with Tottenham in the last game before the international break.
United have been short on striker options since loaning Rasmus Høylund to Napoli. So Ruben Amorim may need to deploy attacking midfielders like Mason Mount, Matheus Cunha and Brian Mbeumo up front as United look to build on their five-game unbeaten run (which he has already done this season).
off the field
Management appointments were made during the international break. Rob Edwards takes over A match against bottom Wolverhampton.
Edwards, who played for the Timberwolves from 2004 to 2008 and was born nearby, has a big job on his hands. The team are on a 15-game winless streak in the league, 11 of which have come this season, and Wolves only have two points left, with eight points already in jeopardy.
Edwards joined from second-tier Middlesbrough and has Premier League experience with Luton Town, but he was unable to sustain that in his first season back in the top flight.
His first game as Wolves manager will be at home to Crystal Palace on Saturday.
___
AP Soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
