It’s finally the time to abuse the food! It’s time for Liverpool to save this season’s decline and turn around this wave

The defending champion Liverpool has lost 5 games after 11 rounds of the Premier League in the 2025-26 season and is currently far behind the championship group. Can they get back on track in the coming weeks?

Looking back to August 2025, which seems far away, the fear of rivals about Liverpool defending the Premier League title was obvious.

They easily won the championship in the 2024-25 season, and then made a rare large-scale investment in the summer, signing many of Europe's top talented players, aiming to consolidate the dominance of English football.

The start of this season is almost perfect.

After defeating Everton in the Merseyside derby on September 20, Liverpool topped the list with 15 points and 5 wins.

Two months later, the situation took a turn for the worse - after losing five of the past six games, they fell to 8th place with 18 points.

The criticism from the outside world is sharp and intensive, which may be due to the shocking decline in their status. Although Liverpool's first five victories are not very convincing, if anyone can predict the current decline, it is more out of expectation than actual prediction.

This does not mean that there was no warning before the season. It would be ignorant to ignore the profound impact that the tragic death of Diogo Jota in early July would have on the coaching staff, the teammates who played alongside him last season, and the new signings who were enveloped in an atmosphere of grief when they first arrived on Merseyside.

On Tuesday, after Scotland's dramatic win over Denmark to qualify for next year's World Cup, Liverpool vice-captain Andy Robertson told BBC Sport: "All I can think about today is my brother Diogo Jota. We've talked about the World Cup many times... I know he must be somewhere tonight The place smiled for me. I couldn't stop thinking about him all day long. I was a little out of control in the room earlier, but I think I concealed it well in front of my teammates."

These heartfelt words are enough to show that Jota's former teammates have difficulty calming down at least in the national team game. Just imagine the depth of grief that Robertson, who worked with Jota for five years, must have felt at club level. Every game is a reminder that former teammates are no longer here, and many Liverpool players feel the same way. In the world of elite sport, where victory is decided by mere hairs, the emotional impact of such a heavy blow cannot be ignored.

The 0-3 derby loss to Manchester City before the international break was certainly painful, but those critical millimeters once again played a decisive role. The Premier League's key match review panel said Virgil van Dijk's first-half goal that would have tied the score at 1-1 should have stood, but otherwise the outcome could have been very different.

Pep Guardiola's team deserved to win, and Liverpool's performance at the Etihad Stadium was indeed poor, but it is worth remembering that the Red Army had just defeated the in-form Aston Villa just over a week ago, and five days ago defeated Real Madrid 1-0 in the Champions League - a victory that was even slightly lucky for the Spanish giants.

However, in the context of the entire season, it is understandable that the outside world has greatly escalated doubts about the strength of the defending champion after losing to Manchester City.

To be fair, their opening schedule in the league is indeed quite challenging. Among the 11 opponents, only Burnley is currently in the relegation zone (third from bottom), and the only mid-to-lower team that plays at home is Everton.

In fact, Liverpool has already encountered 7 of the top 10 teams in the Premier League.

This is not an excuse for them: in the context of modern football, losing 5 games in the first 11 rounds is definitely considered a "crisis" - especially considering that they only lost 4 games in the entire season last season, two of which were obviously slack after winning the championship.

But as we analyzed earlier this week, Liverpool's next schedule looks relatively easy on paper, with a home game against 19th-placed Nottingham Forest on Saturday. In fact, in the next five games, their only strong opponent is the newly promoted Sunderland (currently in the top half) at home on December 3.

Sloat has many problems to solve. In the previous defeats against Villa and Real Madrid, he started last season's favorite midfield trio (Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis McAllister and Dominik Szoboszlai), and the team's performance improved significantly - this may still be the strongest midfield combination in his hands, but this lineup started in 4 of Liverpool's 5 league defeats. The game against Manchester City may have confirmed that the widely believed "copying last season's lineup" is not as safe as people think.

We have recently analyzed their shortcomings in dealing with long passes and will not go into details here. Relatedly, Liverpool has a high rate of possession this season. Opponents seemed happy to use long passing tactics, and if that didn't work, they would give up possession and let the Reds break through the dense defense. Liverpool's average ball possession rate in the Premier League is 60.7%, ranking first in the league; and the proportion of game time facing mid-low defense is as high as 78%, which is also the highest in the league.

This may be the significance of Florian Wirtz's signing. Slott has been accused of a lack of planning for the Germany international, but it is clear that the original intention of signing him was to help Liverpool break through the dense defense that became increasingly difficult at the end of last season - but the effect is not yet obvious.

The worth of 100 million pounds (potential maximum of 116 million pounds) has brought huge pressure, and Wirtz's performance without scoring or assisting in the Premier League has made it even worse. He has performed well in the Champions League but has yet to carry his form into England's top flight.

Wiltz averaged 4.2 sports opportunities per game in the Champions League, compared with only 1.7 in the Premier League; averaged 1.3 excellent opportunities per game in the Champions League, compared with only 0.1 in the Premier League; expected assists per game in the Champions League averaged 0.55, while the number in the Premier League dropped to 0.15..

The 22-year-old player undoubtedly has greater potential to be tapped. He contributed two assists in Germany's match against Slovakia on Monday. It is hoped that this will bring him confidence and make achievements in the Premier League in the next few weeks.

Another billion-dollar summer signing, Alexander Isaac, is about to return from injury. The Swedish forward is also a mystery that Slott has yet to solve, but once he regains his form, there is no doubt about his strength. Liverpool's non-penalty shot conversion rate in the Premier League this season is only 15.3%, while Isaac's figure was 26.4% last season - as long as it can be close to this level, it can bring a lot of help to the team.

However, it will not be easy for the former Newcastle United player to break into the starting lineup, because Hugo Ekitic is one of the few bright spots for Liverpool this season. The French striker is the team's top scorer in all competitions with six goals, and Slott said he could be paired with Isak, as he did in the 5-1 win over Eintracht Frankfurt.

During the international competition week, Ekitic scored his first goal for the national team in France against Ukraine. He worked well with Kylian Mbappe and showed his excellent ability to partner with other forwards.

Although Ekitic performed well, his teammates generally lacked in finishing ability in front of the goal. Last season, Liverpool averaged 2.3 goals per game in the Premier League, but this season it dropped to 1.6 goals after 11 rounds.

The number of great opportunities created by Liverpool (33) is only less than Chelsea (37), Manchester City (34) and Crystal Palace (34), but the conversion rate of great opportunities (27.3%) is only higher than Aston Villa (20%) and Leeds United (22.7%). Last season, they easily led the league with 150 big chances (at least 30 more than any other team) and a conversion rate of 38.7%.

This is true on the offensive end, and Liverpool also performed poorly on the defensive end. They have conceded 17 goals in the Premier League, and only 7 teams have conceded more; the number of shots on target (46 times) and the number of expected goals conceded (13.9) are also at the lower level of the league.

What is even more worrying is that the number of excellent opportunities created by their opponents reached 29 times, only fewer than Burnley (34 times) and West Ham United (32 times). Last season, they created more excellent chances (75) than only Arsenal (58) and Nottingham Forest (73).

This may partially explain why they have difficulty taking the lead this season and maintaining it to the end. In the past 10 games in all competitions, Liverpool has conceded the first goal in 8 games, and has lost all games in the Premier League this season in which it has been behind.

As mentioned in our recent article on the state of play in the Premier League, Liverpool will lead a relatively small proportion of the time in the 2025-26 season (24.1%, or 269 minutes and 35 seconds), with only 7 teams leading for a lower proportion of the time. Even rival Everton led for longer (27.7%, or 303 minutes and 37 seconds).

This is in sharp contrast to last season when they won the championship, ranking first in the league with 45.6% of the leading time.

Liverpool has been behind for 36.9% of the time this season (413 minutes and 04 seconds). Only West Ham United (47%) and Wolves (57.8%) have been behind for a higher proportion of the time. Even 17th-placed Burnley (36.4%) and 19th-placed Forest (32%) have spent less time behind than the Reds in the first 11 rounds.

What is particularly noteworthy is that they were only behind for 615 minutes and 1 seconds last season, and this season they have reached three-quarters of this number after only 11 rounds.

However, there are reasons for optimism. Liverpool also won more early games last season, but some core statistics declined after a strong start. However, it can be seen from the average expected goals and expected goals conceded in 6 games that their form improved significantly after 11 rounds last season, and Slott undoubtedly hopes to repeat this trajectory this season.

Slaughter and his players have a lot of problems to solve, but now is the time to put their recent poor form behind them and get back on the winning streak. That's easier said than done - the grief over Jota's death has not dissipated under the global spotlight, and the style of the league has changed dramatically in a short period of time. But at the end of the day, strength will emerge.

Liverpool must once again prove to the outside world why they will make all opponents feel fear in August.