Three straight defeats for the first time in his Liverpool managerial career has left Arne Slot with plenty to ponder during the international break ahead of the visit of Manchester United to Anfield on Super Sunday.
It should be noted those trio of narrow losses, two of which occurred deep into stoppage time, did all come on the road against high-level opposition in Europe's most in-form team Crystal Palace [xG (Liverpool in bold): 2.92 vs 2.14], Turkish champions Galatasaray [1.72 vs 1.8] and Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, where the Reds often struggle [1 vs 1.95].
However, Liverpool themselves had benefited from late winners in all of their first five Premier League games, victories that now appear to have only papered over the cracks, although not for Slot.
The Dutchman had already noticed a trend in the second half of last season's title-winning campaign where opponents were no longer coming to attack his side, with Liverpool instead being picked off on the counter or when making individual errors, of which there have been plenty of late.
That has resulted in a noticeable drop off in the champions' attacking output - as well as a less assured-looking defence - since the turn of the year and is, according to Slot, one of the reasons why the club decided to spend a then British-record £116.5m to bring Florian Wirtz, the best young attacker in Germany, to Anfield in the summer.
"The first part of last season, Jurgen [Klopp] gave me a lot of gifts, but one of the gifts he also gave me was ending up third the year before and fifth the year before that and him being so well known that a new manager came in and everyone thought, 'Oh, let's start to play against Liverpool'," Slot said ahead of the defeat at Chelsea just prior to the international break.
"Teams played in a completely different way in the first half of the season against us than they did when we were top of the league after half of the season and top of the Champions League after the first part of the season."
With United next up on Sunday, Slot referenced last season's two meetings with their arch rivals - a 3-0 win at Old Trafford in September, followed by a 2-2 draw at Anfield in January - to demonstrate his point.
"If you compare how we won the away game against Man Utd where they tried to play out from the back, and compare with how they played at Anfield, when [Andre] Onana just kept going long, that's what has changed," he said.
Slot pointed out that this change of tactics from opponents is "now going into this part of this season and we have to find answers to that", although he also needs to urgently find solutions to these glaring issues within his own side:
Does Slot know his best full-backs?
For the first time since December 2017, neither Trent Alexander-Arnold - who left the club to join Real Madrid for free in the summer - nor Andy Robertson are Liverpool's first-choice full-backs.
Alexander-Arnold was a rarity in his position on the right, raking up a Premier League-high 64 assists as a defender thanks to a passing range akin to David Beckham at his peak.
"There are very few players in Premier League history who I have seen that can land it on a sixpence like that with that level of speed, accuracy, whip," Gary Neville said of the Englishman after he had created Liverpool's opener at Tottenham last December.
Robertson, meanwhile, has been equally effective on the opposite flank, providing 60 assists since moving to Anfield from Hull City for just £10m in the summer of 2017, making him pound for pound one of the best signings of the Fenway Sports Group era.
It is hardly surprising then that Slot has found it hard to replicate the duo's influence in both defence and attack.
Milos Kerkez was brought in from Bournemouth to take over from Robertson, who struggled for form last season and was expected to be phased out this term after rejecting the chance to join Atletico Madrid in the summer, only for the young left-back to endure his own travails.
Perhaps Kerkez would have benefited from being gradually introduced into the Reds' first team, like Klopp did with Robertson, who was held back from the starting line-up for the first four months of his debut campaign so as to get acclimatised after making a similarly steep leap from relegated Hull.
On the righthand side of the defence, Slot initially went with Jeremie Frimpong for the season opener against Bournemouth, but the new signing picked up an injury, meaning the likes of Conor Bradley, Joe Gomez and even Wataru Endo have since been tried in the role.
And it says everything that even with both Frimpong and Bradley available, the Reds boss has often preferred to utilise midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai as a makeshift right-back.
Salah in a slump?
Mohamed Salah's overall numbers so far this campaign look more than acceptable, with three goals and three assists in 10 matches, but there is no doubt the 33-year-old's game is not where he wants it to be right now.
In fact, a deeper delve into his form shows that across his last 24 games in all competitions, Salah has just four non-penalty goals.
Sure, there have been glimpses of the player who was crowned the double footballer of the year last season, such as his goal against Atletico Madrid in the Champions League and his sublime assist for Ryan Gravenberch's opener in the Merseyside derby.
However, Salah was off colour and largely anonymous in Liverpool's recent league defeats at Palace and Chelsea, the latter where he spurned a golden chance to bring the visitors level just after half-time, while having three or less touches in the opposition box for the second time already this campaign [the other in the 2-1 win at Newcastle], compared to last season when that happened only twice.
"Some of the decisions from him today when he comes inside and you think he should pass it or you think he should do something better with it and his finishing was so poor," said Gary Neville of Salah's display at Stamford Bridge.
Last season, Salah contributed 34 goals and 23 assists in 52 games in all competitions, including a Premier League-high 29 goals and 18 assists to power the Reds to the title.
However, those remarkable goal contributions were only achieved after Salah struck a deal with his head coach whereby he was given license not to track back and help out his right-back.
"I told him [Slot], 'as long as you rest me defensively, I will provide offensively'," he revealed to Sky Sports after Liverpool had been crowned champions in April, but maybe Slot needs to tweak the Egyptian's role as he looks to end this losing run?
We need to talk about Florian…
For many, Wirtz is the elephant in Liverpool's room, with the playmaker yet to contribute either a goal - he spurned a great chance to open his scoring account in the defeat at Selhurst Park - or an assist in his nine Premier League and Champions League matches since joining from Leverkusen in June.
At the same time, the Germany international has created more chances in all competitions - albeit of a low quality - than any player this season [22], with Salah in particular having wasted clear-cut openings at Chelsea and Atletico in the Champions League.
Slot appears relaxed about the situation, though, with the season only two months old and Wirtz still trying to build those all-important relationships with the front line, as his national team manager observed during the international break.
"The statistics don't even tell the whole story," said Julian Nagelsmann of his compatriot's start to life on Merseyside. "Wirtz needs to get used to the league. I saw him playing with total freedom. He knows what he's capable of and how things work."
Slot, however, needs to decide where to utilise his playmaker going forward in order to get the best out of him, while also maintaining the midfield balance.
It was obvious in the opening weeks of the campaign that playing Wirtz as a No 10 was affecting the champions' equilibrium and allowing opponents to get at the back four far too easily, as was seen with Antoine Semenyo's second Bournemouth goal in the season opener.
Jamie Carragher spotted the issue at the time: "That is not right," he said on the Friday Night Football commentary. "I've watched enough football in my life. This idea that everyone bombs forward, it's not for me. I don't like it."
The Sky Sports pundit was even more critical after the Reds' recent losses, saying: "Liverpool aren't playing football at the moment, they are playing basketball. It is just end to end and I don't think top teams play like that."
It is worth recalling that the last time Liverpool fielded a playmaker behind a front three was in the first half of the 2017/18 campaign, when Philippe Coutinho operated in 'the hole'. That ultra-attacking Klopp side scored goals for fun, but also struggled to keep clean sheets, with the Brazilian sold to Barcelona for £146m in January 2018.
Meanwhile, with similarities to what is now happening at Anfield, when Klopp brought in Bayern Munich's Thiago Alcantara to add a new attacking dimension to the hard-working midfield that had helped win the 2019/20 Premier League, it took a whole season to realign the team's balance.
And revealingly, the Reds boss did take the brave decision of leaving his big-money signing on the bench for the recent Merseyside derby so he could revert back to fielding last season's title-winning midfield, with Liverpool producing their best first half of the campaign.
As a result, the Dutchman stuck with Gravenberch, Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister for the next league outing at Palace, but this time with Wirtz stationed as a left-sided forward.
However, the 22-year-old struggled to impact the game from that position, enjoying less touches than when being deployed as an attacking midfielder, with Carragher suggesting Liverpool - and Slot - need to be better at getting him on the ball in between the lines.
"It's fair to say he hasn't been great for Liverpool so far," said the former Reds captain. "But also, I don't think Liverpool have been great for him so far. They've got to come together and try and make it work as best as they possibly can.
"Liverpool have got to do more for him because he's not getting the ball anywhere near as often as he did before [at Leverkusen].
"I do actually think, going forward, wide left might be a role for him at Liverpool, because I think Liverpool in the centre of midfield - Gravenberch, Mac Allister and Szoboszlai - is possibly the best three right now.
"But Liverpool have got to do more to get him on the ball in these areas, and then I think we will see more of Florian Wirtz. But there's no doubt he has to adapt to the pace and the power."
Are Liverpool missing Diaz?
There is nothing Slot can do now to rectify this, but one wonders if the Liverpool head coach and sporting director Richard Hughes regret allowing Luis Diaz, rather than Cody Gakpo, join Bayern Munich last summer?
The Reds did receive a hefty £65.5m for the 28-year-old, who had rejected the club's offers of a new contract and made it clear he wanted a new challenge in either Munich or Barcelona.
It would certainly have been a risk trying to keep hold of an unhappy player and yet, given his electric start to life in Bavaria - the forward has six goals and four assists already in his first 10 games in all competitions this season - you cannot help think his presence down the left flank has been missed.
And not just his goal involvements either, although his 17 strikes in total last season were easily his best return for the Reds, but also his unmatched pressing, attacking verve and brilliant dribbling that so often helped just get the team up the pitch.
In stark contrast, Gakpo [who Bayern were also interested in signing] - like many of last season's title-winning team - has struggled so far this campaign, scoring just twice, whereas he contributed 18 goals and seven assists in 49 matches in all competitions last time around.
Getting the Netherlands forward back to somewhere near last season's form will be high on Slot's agenda.
Slot now needs to earn his money and go to work on the training ground to fix these problems with the team's structure and balance, issues that are having a knock-on effect on their defensive stability.
Incredibly, last season Liverpool did not concede two goals in the Premier League until they drew 2-2 at Arsenal in late October, but from that point on, no ever-present side has let in two or more in more top-flight away games than the champions.
That will no doubt be on Slot's mind, although a combination of injuries to key players, especially Mac Allister, and others losing form as previously mentioned, has led to constant line-up changes.
And whereas last season you could pretty much pick Liverpool's exact starting XI for any match, that is now no longer the case, with Slot seemingly unsure of what his best side is.
Now is the time then for him to settle on his preferred team and stick with it going forward - starting against United on Sunday - as he looks get the champions back to winning ways.
Watch Liverpool vs Man Utd live on Sky Sports on Sunday; kick-off 4.30pm
