Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Liverpool's 10 biggest under-performers during rotten Reds run - ranked

For the first few months of the season, Van Dijk was the only thing holding Liverpool's brittle backline together. Indeed, after the fortuitous 3-2 win over 10-man Newcastle all the way back in August, Carragher admitted that he didn't even want to imagine where the Reds would be without their inspirational skipper.

Unfortunately, we now have a little bit of an idea, because while Van Dijk is still there, at the heart of the defence, he's looking like a cheap imitation of the colossus that led Liverpool to the title last season. Indeed, judging by his ludicrous handball against PSV (the third penalty he's given away this season - more than any other Premier League player in all competitions), Van Dijk has become another victim of the general malaise on Merseyside.

Nobody can fault Van Dijk's commitment - he's been visibly hurt by the Reds' rapid fall from grace - but he actually seems to be trying too hard to turn things around, which is why we're now seeing the captain making uncharacteristically rash challenges. If Van Dijk doesn't rediscover his composure, Liverpool really are done for.

Florian Wirtz has been nowhere near as poor as many critics have tried so desperately to make out. Indeed, the Germany international was integral to arguably Liverpool's best three performances of the season so far, against Atletico Madrid, Eintracht Frankfurt and Real Madrid. Wirtz's creativity was also seriously missed in the three-goal losses at home to PSV and Nottingham Forest.

However, there is no denying that Liverpool supporters expected a hell of a lot more from the £100 million signing from Bayer Leverkusen than three goal involvements in 16 appearances in all competitions. Even allowing for the fact that it often takes time for overseas players to get to grips with the physicality and intensity of English football, Wirtz has often looked out of his depth.

When he returns from injury, the attacking midfielder will be under immense pressure to prove that he can cut it in the Premier League - although it might help if he were given a regular run of starts in his preferred position behind the centre-forward.

Liverpool were never going to be able to find a like-for-like replacement for Trent Alexander-Arnold. The former Kop idol has a unique set of skills for a right-back. Consequently, the Reds recruited Jeremie Frimpong, a diminutive Dutchman with different but no less dangerous attacking attributes.

The problem is that we've seen very little of them, for two reasons. Firstly, Frimpong has proved worryingly injury-prone and is once again out of action after damaging his hamstring for the second time this season, in the Champions League win in Frankfurt. Secondly, even when he has been available for action, Frimpong has not looked a good fit for the right-back berth at all. He has instead looked like what he was at Bayer Leverkusen: an offensively-minded wing-back.

So, whenever Frimpong returns to action, Slot really needs to show us what he intended to do with his compatriot, who has contributed one flukey goal and zero assists in nine appearances to date.

One could easily make the argument that Alexis Mac Allister was Liverpool's most consistent performer during his first two seasons at the club following his 2023 arrival from Brighton. The World Cup winner never produced anything less than a seven-out-of-10 showing. He was Liverpool's multi-purpose midfield dynamo; no matter where he was placed, he drove the team forward with his mix of tenacity and technique.

Mac Allister, though, is currently paying a heavy price for his slower than expected recovery from the injury issues that brought a premature end to his 2024-25 and ruined his pre-season preparations. We've seen flashes of the old Mac Allister and, as a result, the old Liverpool - most notably in goal-scoring displays against Aston Villa and Real Madrid - but he's regressed again over the past week. 

It was genuinely startling to see how easily Nico Williams went through Mac Allister to set up Forest's second goal at Anfield last Saturday before he almost completely disappeared after Liverpool went 2-1 down against PSV in midweek. Mac Allister is far too good a player to struggle all season along, but one cannot help where the Reds will be by the time he gets back up to full match speed.

After missing Liverpool's Premier League opener with Bournemouth through suspension, Ryan Gravenberch initially looked poised to replicate his colossal contribution to last season's title triumph. He played a pivotal role in the Reds winning their first five Premier League games and was particularly impressive in the derby defeat of Everton, with the Dutchman scoring one goal and creating another for Hugo Ekitike.

However, Gravenberch's form has fallen off a cliff since then - and it's no coincidence that Liverpool's has followed suit, given the importance of the Netherlands international to their game plan.

Clearly, the 23-year-old has not been aided by many of those players around him, or the general systemic flaws we’re now seeing in Slot's strategy for this season. However, there's no hiding the fact that Gravenberch is no longer playing well, and what's really worrying is that a player so good at regaining and retaining possession for Liverpool is now shirking tackles and giving the ball away.

Basically, if Slot can't help Gravenberch get back to his best, the Reds' current slump could well continue, as they once again failed to sign a specialist No.6 during the summer.

It wasn't difficult to understand why Liverpool felt that Bayern Munich's £60m ($80m) offer for Luis Diaz was too good to turn down. The versatile Colombian may have been coming off the most prolific season of his Premier League career (13 goals in 36 appearances), but he was 28 and the Reds weren't short on options on the left flank.

Cody Gakpo had flourished after being moved wide by Slot last season, while it was already clear during pre-season that Rio Ngumoha was a very special talent. However, the Diaz deal has now been cast in a very different light because of Gakpo's struggles.

The Dutchman may have netted four times this season, but his inconsistency and one-dimensional game are frustrating the life out of the fans. Diaz, by complete contrast, is flying in Munich, with 11 goals in his first 18 outings for Bayern.

And so, with the tension rising at Anfield and the blame game beginning, it's not remotely surprising to see reports that Diaz was sold against Slot's wishes...

Milos Kerkez was one of the breakout stars of the 2024-25 Premier League campaign and Liverpool weren't the only club heavily linked with the Hungarian, who was also reportedly of interest to Manchester City. However, Richard Hughes won the race for a player that he'd signed for Cherries, and his signing was considered quite the coup for the Reds.

Kerkez looked like the ideal Robertson replacement: fiercely committed and a real threat going forward. He is, though, yet to recover from an overly zealous display against his former club on the opening night of the new season and, with each passing game, he looks more and more unsuited to Slot's side.

It has been argued that he's not to blame for his poor performances, as he's been repeatedly asked to play a more restrained role. However, even when he has been let off the leash, his end product has been disappointing, while his propensity for getting caught out of position - and dominated in the air - has made him a liability.

At this stage, even though Robertson is unquestionably in decline (witness his performance against Forest), the Scot looks like the safer option at left-back.

Time waits for no man and Mohamed Salah is 33 years of age, so, in normal circumstances, the Egyptian would be cut a little slack for his sub-standard showings so far this season. These are not normal circumstances, though.

Liverpool need their leaders to stand up during this time of almost unprecedented crisis and Salah simply isn't doing that right now - which is unacceptable when one considers that the winger was rewarded with a bumper new contract earlier this year.

Nobody for a second is questioning Salah's greatness. He's a couple more strong seasons away from going down as the best player in Premier League history. But four goals in 12 Premier League appearances is simply not an adequate return from Salah. Lightening his defensive load only makes sense if he's delivering at the other end of the field.

It would have once seemed crazy to even think let alone say but, on current form, Salah actually won't be that much of a miss for Liverpool when he heads off to the Africa Cup of Nations next month!

Just like Mac Allister, Alexander Isak is currently counting the cost of missing pre-season. The big difference is, of course, that you won't find anyone sympathising with the striking Swede, who only has himself to blame for arriving at Anfield from Newcastle in such poor physical condition.

Isak has also shown absolutely nothing to suggest that he was worth all of the time, money and effort Liverpool invested in signing him. There has been one goal in a Carabao Cup clash with Southampton and absolutely nothing else.

And that's the really worrying thing in terms of Isak. There have been no exciting signs of what he might bring to this Liverpool side. Sometimes you'd even forget that he was on the pitch.

However, with the far livelier Hugo Ekitike having picked up a back injury, Isak has a chance to belatedly prove his worth, and he simply has to take it - both for his sake and Liverpool's - because, right now, the third-most expensive player of all time is looking like one of the most senseless signings in football history.

Missing out on Marc Guehi is looking like one of the defining moments of a miserable campaign for Liverpool - primarily because the collapse of that deal on deadline day, combined with the season-ending injury suffered by Giovanni Leoni and Joe Gomez's reportedly persistent fitness problems, left Slot feeling as if he has no choice but to continue with the calamitous Ibrahima Konate in the centre of defence.

It's actually a little hard to explain just how badly the Frenchman is playing this season - and not just in the sense that his mistakes simply have to be seen to be believed. Konate's dreadful displays make so little sense when one considers that he was very good last season, as well as the fact that he should be presently doing his utmost to convince Liverpool to give him the kind of contract he wants now that Real Madrid have unsurprisingly decided against signing the increasingly error-prone defender on a free transfer next summer.

As it stands, though, the Reds would be better off withdrawing their latest offer and then trying to sell him for a small fee in January to recoup some of the cost involved in belatedly bringing in Guehi.

Konate really has performed that poorly and the frustrating thing for the fans is that this is all on Liverpool. It was obvious before the transfer window closed that failing to get Guehi in to replace Konate could cost the Reds their Premier League title - and so it's proved.