Liverpool have suffered back-to-back Premier League defeats, slipping from the summit as the international break arrives, with club legend Jamie Carragher highlighting persistent issues he's noticed for some time. The reigning champions have appeared vulnerable defensively even during their fast start to the campaign. Arne Slot's side squandered two-goal advantages against both Bournemouth and Newcastle in their opening fixtures, though they managed to snatch late goals on each occasion to win 4-2 and 3-2, but now their chickens are coming home to roost.
Former Feyenoord manager Slot guided his squad to a perfect record from their opening five fixtures and a victory over Atletico Madrid in their European opener, but they then conceded a stoppage-time goal at Crystal Palace before suffering the same fate against Chelsea on Saturday. Sandwiched between those league setbacks, Slot's team also fell to defeat against Galatasaray in the Champions League, displaying similar defensive frailties - though only conceding once as the Turkish giants failed to take full advantage of their opportunities.
Carragher criticised the team for playing basketball rather than football during that Galatasaray trip and he reiterated those same accusations following the weekend's reverse at Stamford Bridge. "My criticism of Liverpool being almost like a basketball team, again it has come back to haunt them," the 47-year-old said on Super Sunday Extra Time. "This thing about it being end to end in a game of football, Liverpool should be dominating a game like this with the changes of personnel Chelsea have got," he added.
Carragher criticised Liverpool for being "too easy to play through", even when they were winning games. He argued that this hindered them from building on Cody Gakpo's equaliser against Chelsea, before conceding to Estevao in stoppage time. In Istanbul, Victor Osimhen's penalty was the only goal of the game but Galatasaray had numerous other chances to score.
"I expressed that [concerns] to the manager early on, he'll know that a lot better than me," the pundit said. "He is obviously a fantastic manager. But right now Liverpool went from, I would call them a top team, workmanlike team last season and they have sprinkled a little bit of star dust on it terms of the transfers that they have brought in. And they haven't gained anything going forward but they have lost a lot defensively."
