Seven games unbeaten and back in Champions League places - but have Liverpool actually improved since their horror run?

There are undeniable grounds for optimism around Anfield as Liverpool prepare to welcome in the New Year - not least because several of their summer signings are showing signs of belatedly settling into their new surroundings.

Sadly, their most expensive acquisition, Alexander Isak, is out of action until at least March with a broken leg sustained while scoring his second league goal for the club, and in light of his previous struggles to get himself match fit, the striker's debut season on Merseyside is already looking like a write-off.

Luckily for Liverpool, Hugo Ekitike hasn't just proven an excellent alternative to Isak; he's looked like the superior striker. Granted, the Reds recruitment team expected the former Eintracht Frankfurt forward to be good - just not this quickly. Only Erling Haaland had scored more non-penalty goals in this season's Premier League than Ekitike (eight) after 18 rounds of matches, with the France international having struck five times in his last four games.

The 23-year-old is clearly benefiting from a run of starts and his increased fitness levels - which Slot spoke about at length last week - have also allowed Ekitike to exert greater influence over Liverpool's play, as so thrillingly underlined by his fantastic assist for Florian Wirtz in Saturday's 2-1 win over Wolves:

Wirtz's goal was obviously his first since arriving at Anfield during the summer for an initial £100 million, and his relief was there for all to see as he wheeled away to celebrate.

It was also just reward for an outstanding individual display in which he constantly bamboozled the Wolves backline with his intelligent movement and fast feet, prompting former Liverpool striker John Aldridge to compare the diminutive German to the great Peter Beardsley.

Clearly, the weakness of the opposition cannot be overlooked, but it was the kind of decisive and dynamic display that had been coming. As Slot has been at pains to point out, Wirtz has actually been performing at a high level for some time now, looking more and more like his Bayer Leverkusen self with each passing game.

Again, part of the reason for that is the work being done in the gym, with the little bit of extra muscle Wirtz has put on since the start of the season aiding his adjustment to the rigours of English football.

"I know it's the hardest league in the world and I just have to get used to the physicality and the players around me on the pitch in the midfield," he told BBC Sport on Saturday. "But every game I feel a bit better and I want to continue feeling like that."

Jeremie Frimpong has had even more physical problems than Wirtz, with the Dutchman forced to sit out 14 of his first 27 games as a Liverpool player because of two separate hamstring issues, thus robbing him of any chance to build up some serious momentum since his own summer switch from Leverkusen. Just like Wirtz, though, Frimpong is finally primed to replicate the form that made him the scourge of defenders in the Bundesliga.

The versatile right-back has only 120 minutes since returning from injury, but has contributed two assists in that time, and when asked what Frimpong adds to Liverpool side after watching him set-up Ryan Gravenberch's opener against Wolves with a burst to the byline and a clever cut-back, Slot replied, "Pace - that's what he has and that's so important in modern-day football.

"Because to create something against a low-block, teams that defend with so many players, usually teams break this down with set-pieces, but now that's not our biggest strength, so to have him available with his pace... [look at] the first goal we scored [against Wolves]: it was pure individual ability, [the kind of] pace I always wanted to bring in during the summer."

Of course, Slot saying that set-pieces are not Liverpool's "biggest strength" is putting it very mildly. They're actually their biggest weakness - which is a major, major problem in a league where more than a quarter of the goals scored are now coming from non-penalty dead-ball situations (28.6 per cent). It's certainly no coincidence that Arsenal, the team with the best set-piece goal difference (+9) are also top of the table.

Nor is it an exaggeration to say that Liverpool's incessant set-piece struggles are the main reason why their title defence is already over before January, because of the 26 league goals they've shipped so far this season, 12 have come from corners (seven), long throws (two) and free-kicks (two) - which amounts to a frankly ridiculous 46%. It's a staggering statistic and one that nobody could have seen coming when one considers that Liverpool didn't concede once from a dead-ball delivery during the first half of the 2024-25 campaign. 

So, what's going wrong? After all, the Reds haven't significantly changed their approach to defending set-pieces, and, as Virgil van Dijk has pointed out, it's not a case of the Dutchman and his fellow defenders consistently being beaten in the air. On the contrary, Liverpool have won a greater share of their aerial challenges this season than any of their Premier League rivals (57.2%).

What Liverpool are no longer doing, though, is properly clearly their lines or reacting quickly enough to loose balls. "It's something we have to improve," Van Dijk said on Saturday. "I would say at least 75% of the time or even more, it's not even about the first contact. It's the second phase that is the killer.

"We have defended so many set-pieces very well. But the fact is we've conceded too many and we don't score enough." Indeed, Liverpool have netted just three times from dead-ball deliveries, making for a minus-nine differential - the worst in the Premier League.

With all of that in mind, it's easy to understand why the club parted company with set-piece coach Aaron Briggs on Tuesday - because there had been no discernible evidence of improvement, even during their run of seven games without defeat in all competitions, with Liverpool conceding from corners in three of their past four outings.

It's difficult not to feel some degree of sympathy for Briggs, though, given the former first-team individual development coach was appointed to the position in September after Liverpool had failed to find a suitable external candidate for the role during the summer.

There's also no guarantee that Slot and his assistants now taking responsibility for set-pieces will bring about an immediate improvement - especially when one considers that only Manchester United and Arsenal (13) have scored more non-penalty set-piece goals than Liverpool's next opponents, Leeds, who stunned the Reds with an injury-time equaliser from a corner less than a month ago.

Of course, Liverpool have won four consecutive games in all competitions since their trip to West Yorkshire - but not once convincingly. They needed a ludicrous late penalty to beat Inter in a low-quality Champions League clash, while even Slot admitted that they were "lucky" to beat Brighton at Anfield on December 13.

The Reds were also toothless in the 2-1 win at Tottenham until Xavi Simons was sent off, and absolutely abysmal after Richarlison pulled a goal back for the hosts - even though Spurs played the majority of the 10 minutes of injury time with nine men following Cristian Romero's dismissal.

It felt like things were finally starting to click in a dominant first-half showing against Wolves at the weekend, but had it not been for a brilliant last-ditch challenge from Conor Bradley, Liverpool would have dropped points against arguably the worst team in Premier League history.

Once again, a dreadfully-defended corner altered the entire complexion of a game that Slot's side had been dominating, which only served to underline that the one-time 'mentality monsters' are seriously struggling from a psychological perspective.

However, some fans fear that there is also a physical aspect to the team's tribulations, because while the likes of Ekitike and Wirtz are finally looking fitter and stronger, key players such as Alexis Mac Allister and Gravenberch are struggling to match the intensity displayed by Dominic Szoboszlai on a weekly basis, resulting in a damaging imbalance in Liverpool's pressing game.

The overall result is that while the Reds are enjoying a greater share of possession than any other team in the Premier League this season and rank first for passes both into the final third and the penalty area, they're neither exerting anything like the same level of control over their opponents as last term nor killing games off, resulting in one nervy finale after another.

Evidently, just sorting out the set-pieces would go a long, long way towards turning Liverpool's campaign around. Slot says "progress" is being made, but only in the sense that their Achilles heel hasn't cost them any points in their last three Premier League games. The truth is that they've continued to struggle for consistency and composure during the worst run of good results the Premier League has seen since the very same side opened the current campaign with five successive victories.

In that sense, all Liverpool have really done since they last faced Leeds is bought themselves time, because while they've returned to winning ways, they're still not back to their best by any stretch of the imagination.