How Liverpool’s Strategy Backfired And Triggered A Season Of Decline

‎Liverpool’s mounting collapse has stopped being shocking and has instead become something closer to gallows humour.

‎A 4–1 home defeat, their ninth loss in twelve matches, felt less like a football result and more like a narrative checkpoint in a season that has slipped beyond control.

‎What was once a project defined by intensity, clarity, and collective will now resembles a team openly mocking its own attempts at self-rescue. The jokes write themselves because Liverpool keeps supplying the material.

‎New arrivals have come in, too many of them, diluting the culture Jürgen Klopp once forged with such precision. In the middle of this turbulence stands Arne Slot, a manager who confessed before kickoff that he was “almost confused.”

‎It is a revealing choice of words. What does Liverpool look like when the confusion reaches maturity? When the bewilderment reaches its diamond-cut final form? Each performance feels like a step further into that strange destination.

‎Van Dijk’s Unraveling as a Symbol of Decline

‎Virgil van Dijk has long been Liverpool’s barometer. When he is serene, Liverpool hums.

‎When he is rattled, the whole structure shivers. Against PSV Eindhoven, he embodied the chaos rather than calming it. Instead of the “back-to-basics” approach he had publicly demanded, he offered an out-of-character overhead, netball-style handball that gifted PSV an early penalty.

‎The complaint that followed, a sort of baffled entitlement, only shows how far things have shifted.

‎From there he descended further into disarray: booked for a rash challenge, caught whirling helplessly for PSV’s third, and even unintentionally undermining the mood with a breezy half-time TV advert that felt wildly off-key.

‎Van Dijk once radiated assurance simply by existing on the pitch; now he looks like a player searching for instructions that no longer exist.

‎Patterns That Repeat

‎The recurring nature of Liverpool’s goals conceded is what makes the confusion narrative feel misleading. Nothing is confusing about this team anymore.

‎They are predictable, overpowered, and consistently outrun. Opponents no longer need innovative tactics; they simply exploit the same well-known fissures.

‎PSV’s second goal followed a script Liverpool fans have seen too often. Mohamed Salah chased a loose ball with minimal conviction, Anass Salah-Eddine glided past him as if stepping around a street obstacle, and the resulting pass found Couhaib Driouech with embarrassing ease.

‎The right side has become a weekly exercise in pain for whichever unfortunate defender is stationed behind Salah, who continues to start despite offering little defensive contribution.

‎The third goal showed yet another familiar scene: Ibrahima Konaté turning in slow motion, appearing as though his legs were attached the wrong way around.

‎Out of form, short of confidence, and increasingly vulnerable, he nonetheless remains in the lineup because Liverpool’s lavish summer spending spree neglected the one area they needed most: centre-back depth. Real Madrid’s purported interest in him feels like a rumour originating in a parallel universe.

‎The Intensity Has Gone

‎Liverpool’s rise under Klopp was fuelled by one overriding principle: relentless intensity. They were always more aggressive, more energetic, more willing to suffer than anyone else.

‎Now they are consistently the lesser side in those very areas. Every opponent looks fresher, sharper, and more committed.

‎The present malaise cannot be explained by clichés about attitude or character. This is not about bravery or desire. It is about structural faults.

‎Selling Jarell Quansah, who kept Erling Haaland quiet just days earlier, and spending a record fee on a striker they did not truly need is the kind of logic that produces exactly the team we see now. These are not random outcomes but inevitable consequences.

‎Slot’s Role in the Crisis

‎Slot is visibly bewildered, offering thoughtful post-match reflections that sound like a Captain Marveling at the engineering quirks of a ship that is already sinking.

‎Yet confusion feels too gentle a word because the issues are glaring. Liverpool is easy to play against. Every match feels losable. They lack definition, coherence, and identity.

‎There is talent in abundance, but the pieces have been assembled without purpose, resulting in a Frankenstein squad made of mismatched parts and discarded ideas.

‎The question is no longer whether Liverpool is struggling but whether Slot can realistically fix what he has already overseen. He did not anticipate this crisis and still seems unsure of its root.

‎That alone is a reason for concern.

‎A Moment of No Return

‎Liverpool appears to have reached a turning point. The shortcomings are not subtle, nor are the solutions simple. Culture has eroded. Intensity has vanished.

‎The squad is bloated in some areas, skeletal in others. The manager is uncertain, the players are declining, and the strategy has lost its way.

‎Whether it is reversible is unclear. What is certain is that the club desperately needs a reset.