Nine defeats in 12 games. A 75% loss rate since Eddie Nketiah scored a stoppage-time winner for Crystal Palace on 27 September and instigated a collapse that no one at Liverpool, no one in football in fact, could have seen coming. Unbelievable indeed. Arne Slot’s team are stuck in reverse.
PSV Eindhoven became the latest grateful recipients of woeful Liverpool defending and aimless attacking play to inflict a comprehensive and damaging Champions League defeat on the Anfield side. Liverpool have suffered three successive defeats by a three-goal margin and show no signs of conjuring the recovery that Slot desperately needs to prevent a crisis undermining his hold on the job. There were boos around Anfield as the final whistle sounded on another terrible defeat for the Premier League champions.
Not conceding first must have been on Slot’s list of corrections for Liverpool’s sorry run of results but that is precisely what happened as Virgil van Dijk gifted PSV an early breakthrough. The Eredivisie leaders and champions made a confident start. From their second corner in quick succession, delivered by Joey Veerman, the Liverpool captain handled high above his head at the near post to concede a clear penalty. The Spanish referee, Alejandro Hernández, was unmoved by Van Dijk’s claims that he had been pushed in the back by his Netherlands’ defensive colleague Jerdy Schouten. So too was the video assistant referee. Veteran Croatian midfielder Ivan Perisic sent a confident penalty the opposite way to Liverpool goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili, who was deputising for the ill Alisson.
