Premier League gifts Liverpool INCREDIBLE antidote to woeful form

Liverpool's hopes of retaining the Premier League were looking good five games into the season.

Despite the overall team performances not looking great, a number of late goals were scored to get precious points on the board, helping to get seven consecutive wins in all competitions - five in the league. However, things then derailed quickly and the Reds are now in a concerning position.

Only three wins have come since Southampton were beaten in the Carabao Cup in September, with the team slumping to lose seven of their last 10 matches. In the league, Liverpool are sitting on 18 points in eighth place - six wins and five losses. Arsenal, meanwhile, are eight points ahead in first.

As you would expect, the £450m transfer spend in the summer has been thrown back at Arne Slot and the club's face, although we might be getting close to seeing light at the end of the tunnel.

Liverpool are through the worst of it

According to Opta, the Reds have had the hardest start to the Premier League of all 20 teams this season, playing 11 fixtures with an average difficulty rating of 93, compared to Arsenal's sixth easiest of 91. The overall standard across the league has been significantly harder than in previous years.

This can be illustrated by the contests against Newcastle (A), Arsenal (H), Everton (H), Chelsea (A), Manchester United (H) and Manchester City (A). Four of the traditional 'big six' and the derby match.

Eighteen points is a far from optimal start to the season from Liverpool, although it's not quite time for dreams of the title to be disregarded. 27 more games still need to be played, and even though no side has won the league with such a bad start in the opening 11 games since Everton in 1986-87, we have seen 10 teams achieve the feat from Liverpool's position or worse. Hope still remains.

As with every difficult run, an easy one is just around the corner, and the Premier League schedule has got an extra special Christmas gift in store for the Reds this winter, looking at our next 11 games.

Once the team is back from the international break, we play Nottingham Forest (H), West Ham (A), Sunderland (H), Leeds (A), Brighton (H), Tottenham (A), Wolves (H), Leeds (H), Fulham (A), Arsenal (A) and Burnley (H). That's two of the 'big six' and four games against the recently promoted sides.

It goes without saying that Liverpool will need to play better in these games to get results. Easier fixtures don't automatically result in wins, it's certainly possible that we could see the team on an upward trajectory when the new year comes around, with rebuilt confidence and form behind them.

The additional context, which ought to be mentioned, is the fact that Mohamed Salah will be unable to play against Tottenham, Wolves, Leeds, Fulham, Arsenal and Burnley, due to his participation in AFCON, although the latter two are contingent on Egypt's progression through the knockout phases.

Champions League matches will also need to be factored in to this fixture run, which complicates things ever so slightly, given PSV (H), Inter Milan (A) and Marseille (A) are still to be played as well.

Nonetheless, the opportunity is there for Liverpool to play catch up and get themselves back into a position where they can be competing for the top four, while keeping an eye on the title race ahead.

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