As Arne Slot was laying out what needs to happen before his side can even start thinking about a title race, it was hard to shake the sense that you’d heard this all before. Not, it should be noted, from Slot himself. Before this almighty slide, he had never had to set his team the target of “result after result after result.”

In doing so, however, he cast this particular mind (London warped, watches too much Arsenal) back 364 days to what seemed to be the all too early end point of another title challenge. Mikel Arteta had just seen his side cede further ground to the leaders with a 2-2 draw at Chelsea. He too insisted now was not the time to discuss a title race that so many had expected them to be key riders in, that all his side could do from here on out was “win, win, win, win, win, win, win and win.”

History records that Arsenal did not manage to do as their manager commanded. Indeed, only twice did they “win, win, win.” A point further from the top than the eight-point hole Liverpool find themselves, Arteta’s side never regained the ground they had given up in the first third of the season. The standards they set themselves were too vertiginous. One wobble begot another; the gap felt too wide and players couldn’t help but let their focus drift to the competitions they were still alive in.

Already you can see how that might be a template for Liverpool in 2025-26. Between now and Christmas, their league fixtures look rather more favorable but it only takes a rough trip to the London Stadium or some off color finishing against Robin Roefs and there’s a chance for Arsenal and Manchester City to push away.

As Andrew Robertson acknowledged, what comes next could be an almighty slog.

“We’ve given ourselves a huge uphill battle,” he said after the 3-0 loss at the Etihad, “but I don’t think any of the teams will really look at the league table until we’re halfway through. That’s what we’ve got to do but we’ve got to pick up points on a more consistent basis. Then let’s see where we are after Christmas time or whatever. We’ve just got to focus on ourselves and focus on performance levels.

“I don’t think you can talk about the title this early on in the season, regardless of what position you’re in, but you need to then consistently start winning games again for that to even come into question. It’s definitely not a question that’s getting spoken about in the changing room or anything. We just need to get back to the levels that we know we can, the levels that we brought the last two games in particular. If we do that on a more regular basis, then we pick up more points than we won’t.”

Selection troubles

Something needs to change drastically with Liverpool. That may start on a tactical level. Slot went back to last season’s template with great success against Aston Villa and Real Madrid last week, wins which delivered two of the meager four clean sheets this side have kept in 17 games. It is worth noting that the man himself had spoken of his qualms that that particular approach might have been figured out by opponents at the end of last season. After all, the champions have lost 40 percent of their games since Paris Saint-Germain slipped by them in the Champions League. The problems might have been exacerbated, for now, by the hierarchy’s actions in the window but that’s the point. They were there.

That much was apparent as City brushed them aside. To many it would have seemed like Liverpool lacked the stomach for the fight, that the events of the preceding eight days had taken too much out of them, a worrying sign indeed given that their hosts had played 24 hours later. Instead Slot laid the blame for the first half struggles on himself.

Liverpool’s title defense over? Loss to Man City after Real Madrid win in UCL showcases alarming inconsistency James Benge

“It’s easy for players to win their duels if the game plan and the tactics are working and I think that’s what it did against Villa and what it did against Madrid,” he said. “We struggled now a lot with them bringing so many players into the centre of the pitch and it was difficult then for some of our players to make the right decisions. It wasn’t about my players not wanting to make the duel, they had to run a lot because [City] were so much better on the ball than us.”

Out of possession, Liverpool tend to defend in something between a 4-2-3-1 and a 4-2-4, depending on whether Dominik Szoboszlai is pushed up into the front line of the press. In the first half, City found the holes in that with supreme efficiency, Rayan Cherki drifting infield to give his side at least four options to stretch apart Liverpool’s three, Erling Haaland also dropping off the front line on occasion to add more ballast. Liverpool could only respond by chucking more and more bodies into midfield positions, in doing so, leaving Conor Bradley defenseless as Jeremy Doku put him in the blender.

Now there are only a handful of teams who can do to Liverpool what a near-peak efficiency City did. Not many of them play in the Premier League. If, for instance, Nuno Espirito Santo fancies packing the middle with Tomas Souceks and James Ward-Prowses in three weeks’ time then that will probably be a win for Slot. This is, however, only one of a few ways to skin this particular Liverpool cat.

There is certainly a bit of misfortune in their record of dead-ball concession, seven goals against from 3.4 xG, but Slot’s seeming dismissal of Nico Gonzalez’s goal, City’s second, as nothing more than “a set piece” was alarming. Teams are allowed to defend these and it was alarming how poorly prepared Liverpool seemed when their opponent manoeuvred a corner around with a few short passes.

Those comparisons to last season’s Arsenal rear their heads when you consider the injuries, too. Certainly, Liverpool haven’t yet been dogged by the sort of relentless blows that hit the Gunners later on in 2024-25 but at this stage of last season that wasn’t the issue for the title challengers. They had really just lost one load-bearing figure in their structure, Martin Odegaard, who limped back from an ankle injury too soon because the attack just couldn’t get going without him.

In Liverpool’s case, you sub in not Alexander Isak (though it might help to have him competing with Hugo Ekitike now the Frenchman has gone off the boil) but Alisson. Giorgi Mamardashvili has performed ably since stepping in between the sticks, not least in saving Haaland’s penalty, but he is not the best one vs. one goalkeeper of his generation. Nor does he have Alisson’s ball-playing skills, the sweeping skills that can push a defensive line five yards up the pitch nor an authority that radiates beyond the backline. At a time when so many of the totems of last season’s title win are askew – the Ibrahima Konate, Virgil van Dijk axis, Alexis Mac Allister, Mohamed Salah – they need the transformative impact of the best goalkeeper in the game.

Can Liverpool get ‘result after result?’

If nothing else, it would help no end to have a truly elite goalkeeper while they are as vulnerable down the flanks as they have been so far this season. Right now, there is not much of a case to be made that Liverpool can get “result after result,” given how their defensive standards have slipped this season. Once more, the parallels with old Arsenal are striking, perhaps even a bit more pronounced. Eleven games into the campaign, Arteta’s side had gone from holding teams to an exceptional 0.69 non-penalty expected goals (npxG) per game to 1.03. Liverpool too have faltered, allowing a rot that began to set in around March to carry on into a season where they are allowing 1.12 npxG per game.

To consistently deliver title-winning results with those sort of underlying defensive metrics requires one of the greatest attacks in the sport. Liverpool don’t have that. They have scored 18 in 11 Premier League games, good for sixth most, and have 17.25 npxG, seventh best. When that gives you an npxG difference that that is only the fifth best in the league at 0.44 per game, you aren’t profiling as a team that is going to go on a run. The narrative arc of this season might feel like Arsenal’s but the data is closer to 2024-25 Aston Villa, who would go on to pick up 48 points from their remaining 27 games of the season. Suffice to say they never got “result after result after result.”

That was in a division that might have been more stratified than this season’s. The story of the first 11 games of the season is, as Slot put it, “one team is quite far ahead ... the rest is quite close.” There is no great gap in npxG difference either. From Liverpool at 4.88 to Tottenham at -4.26 there are 14 teams. Perhaps only Wolverhampton Wanderers and Burnley are legitimately bad this season. Take out maybe half the gimme games there were last year and it becomes so much harder to get on a roll.

On paper, Liverpool face teams ranked 18th and 19th immediately after the international break and then two newly promoted sides. In reality, both West Ham and Nottingham Forest look to be toughening up under veteran coaches well versed in defend and counter play. Leeds on an Elland Road night sounds like a tough task too, Sunderland might not be the same force away from the Stadium of Light but would you bet on them not giving Liverpool a bloody nose after what they did to Arsenal?

It felt the same for the Gunners 12 months ago after all. They thought they’d got through the hard part and that succour was on the horizon. Instead they ended up as living proof that even title contenders can’t flick a switch and “win, win, win.” If that is true of Liverpool, then their title race is already run.