The REALITY behind Liverpool's identity struggles this season

It doesn't take a genius to see that Liverpool are struggling right now, but where is it going wrong?

After 11 Premier League games, a mere 18 points have been notched up - after the Reds initially won their opening five matches. In four of those opening five wins, the Reds were seen to have relied on scoring late goals, and we scored a few in fairness. The results didn't come off great performances.

But points were on the board in difficult fixtures. You felt as though Arne Slot would have the team firing on all cylinders sooner rather than later, although the side has now lost seven of their last ten games in all performances, which suggests there is a far deeper array of problems to deal with.

The defence has taken a lot of flack for the polarising run of form, and it's understandable as to why, since 25 goals have been conceded in 17 games, which is troublesome, but there is far more context behind Liverpool's identity problems to consider, and it's not necessarily a reflection on the club.

The Premier League has fundamentally CHANGED

FSG sanctioned Richard Hughes and the Reds' recruitment team to spend £450m on transfers in the summer, and world-class players like Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak were signed, alongside Hugo Ekitike, Milos Kerkez, Jeremie Frimpong and others. Each of them were good signings to have made.

Slot explained the rationale behind his transfer strategy during the early part of the season, looking to add 'weapons' to his arsenal, trying to achieve the rare feat of defending the Premier League title.

Right now, it's proved difficult to get the jigsaw pieces to fit together. That's not to say that they are incapable of gelling at some point, but we're just not there yet. As mentioned, the defence has been poor and the midfield balance has been misjudged on a few different occasions, it all feels wrong.

And that's not to say that the attack has worked well either. The Athletic have claimed in a recent article that 'Liverpool were an attacking juggernaut last season, scoring 86 goals in the Premier League' which is accurate, and a fair assessment of how well the Reds used to be going forward.

This season, however, we rank sixth for goals scored on 18 and when you extrapolate the current rate of scoring, you get 62 goals, which is a particularly low amount - a drop off of 24, in spite of the additions of Wirtz, Ekitike and Isak, with Diogo Jota, Darwin Nunez and Luis Diaz no longer with us.

The missing context from that stat in particular, however, is that top-of-the-league Arsenal have 20 goals through 11 games this season, which is just two more than the Reds. They're on track to score 69 goals this year, unless the rate of scoring increases. That figure is exactly how many Mikel Arteta's side scored last season - what's changed is just how defensively solid they've become.

Whether you win games with a scoreline of 1-0 or 4-3, the points are the same. By all accounts, it's the Gunners' goal-difference that will change, rather than Victor Gyokeres and Eberechi Eze helping them to become a more attacking asset. It doesn't really make sense, when you think about it.

But the way the Premier League has changed this season is essential to understanding it all. More set pieces are being scored, and that's because defences are more compact than we've seen in recent years. Liverpool aren't able to deal with it, whereas Arsenal are masters of new approach.

The way to teams are playing in this country is not what we're used to. Claims that the league has regressed are based on a lack of goals being scored in general, which can be viewed as a direct consequence of there being less end-to-end football. Flare players aren't required as much, there simply isn't any space in behind for strikers to run into. None of this was anticipated by Slot.

Could or should we have seen this coming? Perhaps. But the players that Liverpool bought aren't a problem, it's just about adapting them to the new Premier League, not necessarily to themselves.

The results haven't been good, and they have to improve if we're to still be in with a shout of having a successful season, but it's not straightforward to navigate through this transitional period for the side and the league as a whole. In time, things will come good, it's just a matter of when.

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