It’s been coming. Yes, Liverpool are top of the Premier League. Yes, they have won five out of their six matches in the league.
Yes, they won seven in a row in all competitions to start the season. Yes, winning when you’re not playing at your best is what champions do.
But it has been coming. There’s only so many late goals you can score to get you out of trouble. You can paper over cracks but that won’t cover the fault lines when they start to widen.
And so they have. A late but deserved defeat at Crystal Palace was followed by another against Galatasaray in Istanbul in a performance that brought all of Arne Slot’s issues to the fore.
Dominik Szoboszlai, a central midfielder playing at right back, gave away the crucial penalty for Victor Osimhen to tuck away. Szoboszlai was frequently targeted by the Turkish side as winger Baris Alper Yilmaz exploited him for pace.
Slot was given a sign of things to come after just two minutes when Yilmaz raced in behind the Hungarian and forced a save from Alisson.
So many of Liverpool’s problems fed into that one moment. It’s not just because Szoboszlai is playing at full back. Despite a bad night in Istanbul, he remains one of Slot’s most consistent performers this season. He was superb in that role in the victory over Arsenal, not least when he popped up with the winning goal.
It’s just that Liverpool’s issues – big-money signings struggling, a new tactical approach still teething, and the absence of a former favourite – have left Slot feeling he has no choice but to play him there.
CONTROLLING THE CHAOS
‘They are not playing football,’ lamented an exasperated Jamie Carragher after the defeat on Tuesday night. ‘They are playing basketball.’
That’s been the biggest change this season under Slot. In his march to the title last term, he inherited Jurgen Klopp’s team of ‘heavy metal’ rockstars but instilled a sense of control over the chaos. Gone was the relentless gegenpressing, in its place a better balance between risk and reward.
This season has seen Slot shift back the other way. Signing direct players like forward Hugo Ekitike and flying full backs Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez always suggested a change was coming.
During Klopp’s final campaign, Liverpool moved the ball forward at 1.93 metres per second. Last season, it dropped to 1.75. Now, it’s creeping up again, to 1.82. In Klopp’s last year, they lost possession of the ball 141 times a game. On their way to the title last term, it was just 123. Now, it’s back up to 130.
They have lost their balance and their control. Liverpool now commit so many players forward, especially in wide areas, that teams can pick them off and exploit the space in behind.
Moving Szoboszlai to full back is one way of trying to counter that. He is one of Liverpool’s best players out of possession - he has recovered the ball more times than any of his team-mates this season.
He’s more defensively minded than Frimpong, who loves to bomb forward - he even started on the wing in Istanbul - and can offer better protection for Mo Salah down that side.
If Slot wants a full back to drift into midfield for added numbers, or to help fulfil an inverted role performed so well by a certain former academy graduate now in Spain, he already has a ready-made midfielder to do so in Szoboszlai.
Yet even that didn’t help in Istanbul. It took Galatasaray just 23 seconds from clearing Cody Gakpo’s shot off the line to winning the crucial penalty.
You can see from Liverpool’s average positions just how much space they leave in behind their full backs, even with Szoboszlai playing there.
MAKING MISTAKES
When you want to play with your full backs so high and embrace the chaos, the one thing you cannot afford is for your centre backs to make mistakes. They need to be the constants that keep your foundation grounded. In Ibrahima Konate, they have a defender who is putting his side at risk.
In the defeat to Palace, he dallied on the ball with his full backs high up the field and allowed Yeremy Pino to pounce, win possession, and start an attack that only didn’t end in a goal thanks to a fine save from Alisson.
He did similar against Galatasaray, playing a terrible pass back to Ryan Gravenberch that allowed Osimhen to run clear and forcing Alisson into a save that injured him and ruled him out for at least the next game.
Konate’s mistake also gave Yunus Akgun (11) a clear run into the space behind had he been played in by a team-mate.
ACCOMMODATING WIRTZ
Another reason why Szoboszlai is being shifted to full back - beyond the initial injury to Frimpong and poor form of Conor Bradley - is because Slot is trying to find a way to fit a struggling Florian Wirtz into the side.
Last season, the midfield trio of Szoboszlai, Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister were one of the cornerstones of Liverpool’s title win. Gravenberch with his physicality and ball progression, Mac Allister with his vision, composure and creativity, and Szoboszlai with his energy, pressing and passing range. We’ll come to that last bit.
Liverpool never had a genuine No 10 – and then Wirtz signed for £116m. If Slot wants to play him in that role, he can’t start his tried-and-tested trio too, as it leaves them too open. Moving Szoboszlai to full back means he doesn’t have to choose. He can try to get the best out of all of them.
Wirtz has struggled. He’s only 22 and could yet come good, but he’s been too slow on the ball and is making the midfield disjointed. And in terms of defensive output, he has won the ball back 3.9 times per 90 minutes this season - not bad, but a significant drop-off from Szoboszlai's 5.0 per 90 in that position last year.
He’s yet to score or create a goal in the league. He’s yet to provide a ‘big chance’ (as defined by Opta) for a team-mate and his seven chances created from open play is less than half as many as Jack Grealish has managed for Everton.
Szoboszlai started at full back at Newcastle but moved into the No 10 role once Wirtz had come off. And it was his dummy that created the opening for Rio Ngumoha to score the dramatic winner.
TRYING FOR TRENT?
Replacing Trent Alexander-Arnold with Frimpong was always going to bring a change and a challenge.
Few have the range of passing from deep of Alexander-Arnold, and his ability to ping a pass across the length of the pitch was a key outlet for Liverpool last season.
Without him, they have lost that weapon. Frimpong is not that player, even without his hurtling up the pitch. Bradley is not that player. Szoboszlai is that player.
Having him at full back enables Slot to get one of his best passers on the ball early and play from deep. For all the criticism that has come his way after the defeat in Turkey, he did it brilliantly against Arsenal.
No one played as many passes into the final third against the Gunners as Szoboszlai. He played a sensational cross-field ball across the length of the pitch to Wirtz, as shown by his pass map from Anfield. Despite his struggles defensively, he produced another against Galatasaray.
So, you can see why Slot is trying to make it work. The issue is, after all the money Liverpool spent in the summer, he shouldn’t really have to.