Fewer touches than Alisson & 100% duels lost: Liverpool star must be dropped

Liverpool have been beaten at bottom-of-the-table Wolverhampton Wanderers in a sobering reminder that Arne Slot's side remain miles of the standard.

To put that in less uncertain terms: Liverpool's potential ticket into the Europa League is surely starting to dawn on these players, who yet again have been guilty of stodgy, sterile football.

It has not been lost on Liverpool's passionate fanbase that many of these same players (and their head coach) are Premier League champions, yet act like a team lacking the quality and belief and conviction to challenge for a position at the top of the division, let alone mount a realistic effort to retain last year's expertly-won title.

This is a crisis of wills. For the fifth time this season, Liverpool fell to a 90th minute winner, an unwanted record that looms above any other side in the competition's history.

Who, exactly, was to blame?

The players to blame for Liverpool's defeat

Perhaps it would be more accurate and insightful to state who wasn't to blame for Liverpool's defeat. Alisson Becker, despite conceding both of Wolves' shots on target, could do little, and was failed by his defenders.

Virgil van Dijk simply wasn't strong enough in the build-up to the Old Gold's opener, and the Reds were sloppy and slow as they cleared danger in the dying embers, allowing Andre to score from a wicked deflection and make it 2-1.

The wingers have been torrid for too long. Mohamed Salah scored, but he's lost all of his athleticism and his self-belief has waned too.

Gakpo, however, is a more egregious case. The 26-year-old has become far too predictable for too long, and it's no understatement to say that fans will be furious if Rio Ngumoha, bright when he came on, is not in the starting line-up at Molineux on Friday for the FA Cup fifth round.

Slot must also shoulder much of the blame. The head coach lacks the clarity of last season, unable to create and sustain the kind of energy that is needed to consistently win games in the Premier League.

However, he did react in the right way, making a change that was sorely needed to inject something into the match. Nonetheless, it was too little too late in the end, with Liverpool sent into a spin at Molineux.

Slot must drop 4/10 Liverpool man

Liverpool have improved lately. However, if they had failed to improve upon the wretched run earlier in the campaign, Slot would be out of a job right now.

There are still many problems, and the form of Ryan Gravenberch is one of those problems.

Booked and consequently withdrawn at the interval on Tuesday evening, the 23-year-old has been a pale shadow of his former self, and he lacked any morsel of quality or application against Wolves, whose physicality overwhelmed him and made him resort to lunging challenges that only stifled any fluency that Liverpool were trying to string together.

An energetic, press-resistant number six, Gravenberch has been remodelled under Slot's wing but he's been unable to take charge this season, and after such an erratic performance, he will likely be dropped for the forthcoming clash against Rob Edwards' side.

Gravenberch was hardly the only one at fault, but he's certainly fallen well below his former standards, picking up the Premier League Young Player of the Season award for 2024/25.

And when the anchor has become so rusty, it's going to leave Liverpool unmoored from a tactical perspective. Defensive errors and offensive bluntness both contributed, but the point of Gravenberch's role is that he makes things tick, picks ther right pass and sweeps up danger at the right time.

He isn't doing these things with the sureness of last season, and Slot's decision to withdraw him at half-time was the right one to make, the midfielder having failed with all six of his duels despite committing four fouls - he picked up a yellow card to boot.

One analyst noted after the game that the Netherlands international is "just not improving on his deficiencies", and that's a fair assessment.

He took 41 touches of the ball but failed to do anything with that time spent. Gravenberch did not create a chance or complete a dribble. He lost possession seven times, and ended up with fewer touches than Alisson between the sticks (who had very little to do for the most part).

Ball retention should not come at the expense of fluid forward passing, but this is Liverpool's reality, and even if they manage to limp over the finish line in a top-five position, securing a route into next year's Champions League group stage, FSG have no shortage of problems to sort out ahead of the new campaign.

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