Liverpool’s crisis: How can Arne Slot’s team recover and are Mo Salah and Virgil Van Dijk part of the problem?

All things must pass, especially the mantle of Premier League crisis club. At some indeterminate point in the future, perhaps much earlier than their rivals might hope, Liverpool fans will be looking on with a sense of relief at the pickle that one of their rivals has landed themselves in. Five weeks ago English football was trembling at the emergence of the next great dynasty. Liverpool had contrived to win every game when they were out of form. Woe betide everyone else in the division when it all clicked for the champions.

But of course it hasn’t. Four defeats on the spin in the Premier League have Liverpool’s title challenge looking ever more perilous and up next is the team who began this whirlwind month, Crystal Palace out to do unto Arne Slot in the EFL Cup as they did in the Premier League. And now, given that the cracks apparent in August and September have broken ever wider of late, it is hard to shake the sense that when Liverpool re-emerge as a force, they will not look like they did now. 

For starters, too many of the fundamentals seem broken. This is a team that cannot keep the ball out of their own net. Only Arsenal and Burnley have failed to score against Liverpool this season; the other 11 competitive opponents have 19 goals to their name. There’s no particular scoring luck to that, nor have the Reds had the misfortune of running into a lot of hot teams. They are simply a team unable to deal with the basics of a Premier League attack.

That has often been framed in terms of set pieces, and they are struggling with six concessions in the Premier League alone. Liverpool’s struggles there are hard to explain; the best Jurgen Klopp teams dominated off dead balls, but they seem to have fallen by the wayside under Slot, who should be able to get more from his players in aerial battles than they are giving him. After all only Wolverhampton Wanderers have rolled out more players 6 foot 2 or taller than the nine who have taken the field for Liverpool, two of whom are goalkeepers.

Set balls almost feels like a secondary issue to the biggest issue facing their defense, the fact that this is a team that gets run through when it loses possession. Liverpool have allowed 14 shots from counter attacks this season, no one else has given up more than 10. As anyone that saw them against Brentford can attest, passes over the top and through the lines are killing this team.

Much of the blame for this has been placed on the defense and in particular of late Virgil van Dijk. It is probably fair to say that the 34-year-old has lost some of the pace of old; the moment a few forwards twig that then a lot of the aura of old goes with it too. He himself has acknowledged the need for improvement, saying on Saturday that “everyone has to look in the mirror, including myself.” It was, however, what he said just before that best reflected what has gone wrong at Liverpool. “It’s easy to blame a particular person, the backline or set-pieces, but it’s a collective thing in the end.”

Van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate have looked so out of sorts this season because they aren’t getting the protection they got last season. That starts with their pressing, a team that recovered possession four and a half times per game in the attacking third in 2024-25 is now down to 3.3 this term, about half of what a Klopp team might do, even in the years where the intensity was dialed down a smidge. It used to be that only Mohamed Salah got to rest when his team didn’t have the ball. Now it seems that at least half the attack are empowered to catch their breath.

It is probably also true that Liverpool’s opposition just don’t fear the damage their frontline might cause as currently constituted. Salah looks satiated, even the best of the rest in Hugo Ekitike is at 0.42 xG per 90. In a league where no team is willing to sit back and take a punishment, you’d gamble that you can overcome what Liverpool’s attack might do to you.

The midfielders too aren’t hitting like they used to, fewer ball recoveries and interceptions, too many occasions where Dominik Szoboszlai and Curtis Jones find themselves behind play that is bearing down on their defenders. Opponents are not passing that well against Liverpool, but in part that is probably because teams have twigged the value of just getting it up the field quickly so their forwards can compete and punish the gaps left by the fullbacks. It is in those positions that Richard Hughes and Michael Edwards most obviously erred during their summer trolley dash. 

Neither Jeremie Frimpgong nor Milos Kerkez are at all at ease going backwards; it would be no trouble to have both in the squad if Liverpool had a few other full back options who could tuck inside when the other bombed on. Barring Joe Gomez and maybe jamming Andrew Robertson into a role he is not hugely comfortable with, those options really aren’t there. Neither is a prime Fabinho type, the sort of midfielder who could drop back when the center backs split and allow Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold to bomb on.

Both Kerkez and Frimpong look like players who will be at their best if Liverpool played with a three man defense. They’re not the only new recruits for whom that is the case. Florian Wirtz excelled in Xabi Alonso’s 3-4-2-1 and if you’re going to drop a combined $250 million on a pair of center forwards — Ekitike and Alexander Isak — you might as well find a way that they can play together. In the summer Liverpool’s recruitment seemed like a vision of a post-Salah future. If it weren’t for Isak’s latest groin issue, more of this article might be given over to discussing whether the new era had already arrived.

Ultimately, it is hard to shake the sense that post crisis Liverpool, whenever that comes, is likely take up a notably different formation to the 4-4-2 Slot employed last week. So long as the front six can’t protect them, this team cannot roll with a back four. The last compelling argument to not shift to a back three is that the deadline day fumbling of Marc Guehi’s signature left this team without enough center backs. They will have to make do with what they have. Robertson and Gomez could fill in while Slot also experimented with Ryan Gravenberch at center back in preseason and against Chelsea. 

Frimpong, Kerkez and Conor Bradley could all focus that little bit more on what they are good at, pushing on down the flanks in possession and providing the sort of pure width that none of Liverpool’s attackers do naturally. That extra body in defense might allow for Dominik Szoboszlai’s pressing qualities to be exploited on turnovers. If a switch to a back three can add some passing angles from deep it might stop the baffling trend of Wirtz dropping deep to get the ball progressing into the sort of spots on the field where he has historically done the most damage by receiving passes and creating. In Isak’s absence the German could slip into the left inside forward role he excelled at with Leverkusen, Ekitike leading the line and Mohamed Salah in the pockets where he has historically been rather effective.

Such a radical change doesn’t guarantee that Liverpool will press better. It doesn’t make them better at organising themselves from set pieces. It certainly won’t bring back prime Van Dijk and Salah if they have left the stage. Even if the different shape plugs the current gaps there is no guarantee that leaks won’t burst elsewhere.

In their current situation, however, Liverpool don’t have much choice but to try something else. Their struggles are far gone enough to suggest that when they do emerge out of this dark tunnel, it will be in a rather different form to the one they had on entry.

How to watch Liverpool vs. Crystal Palace

• Date: Wednesday, Oct. 29 | Time: 2:45 p.m. ET
• Location: Anfield — Liverpool, England
• Live stream: Paramount+
• Odds: Liverpool -165; Draw +375; Crystal Palace +425