Liverpool's woeful Premier League title defence is over - now Arne Slot must start making tough calls to plan for a brighter future

Slot was rightly bemused by the decision to disallow Virgil van Dijk's equaliser at the Etihad. However, he didn't even attempt to argue that the Reds had deserved to go in level at the break. "In the first half," Slot said, "they were better than us in every aspect of football."

The stats certainly supported that assessment. As well as registering just one short on target during the entire game, Liverpool also lost more than 60 percent of their duels. Plenty of attention was obviously given to the way in which Conor Bradley struggled to contain Player of the Match Jeremy Doku (not least because he was given so little help by Ibrahima Konate and Mohamed Salah), but the truth was that Liverpool lost head-to-heads all over the pitch. Not a single member of Slot's side had a good game - or played with anything like the requisite intensity for such an important and demanding Premier League fixture.

"You can't be considering Liverpool for the title. The decision [on the disallowed goal] might have gone against them, but overall, City looked technically and physically better than Liverpool," ex-Manchester United captain Roy Keane told Sky Sports. "They have still got that attacking quality and, at times, they'll cause teams problems, but defensively, the goals they've given away, the decision-making, lack of intensity and energy, chopping and changing by bringing subs on - they still looked really flat."

Slot insisted that Liverpool didn't want for effort at the Etihad and that he had no concerns over his players' attitude or application.

"It's easy to win duels if the game plan and the tactics are working and I think that’s what happened against [Aston] Villa and [Real] Madrid," the former Feyenoord coach said, alluding to last week's morale-boosting wins at Anfield. "But we struggled a lot with them bringing so many players into the centre of the pitch and it was difficult then for some of our players to make the right decisions. So I think it wasn't about my players not wanting to make the duel, they had to run a lot because they [City] were so much better on the ball than us.

"I would first and foremost, then, always look at the game plan of us and them and not blame my players at all because, in the second half, when we were doing better, I think you could also see that they were able to win much more duels. In that period of time, I think we definitely deserved a goal."

Keane ridiculed Slot's assessment of the second half by arguing that, "the game was over! It's easy to play well when you're not playing for anything." That's not strictly true, though. Had Cody Gakpo taken a glorious chance to halve Liverpool's deficit shortly after coming on, the visitors would have been right back in the game. 

However, there is simply no denying that the Reds are not the relentless force they were last season.

Too often this season Liverpool have started games in second gear, thus resulting in the concession of a succession of costly early goals. We're also still awaiting an adequate explanation as to why Slot's side look like a "weak team", as Keane put it, after spending more than £400 million ($525m) strengthening their squad during the summer. 

Slot has a point when he says that Liverpool have been hindered by fitness problems. Bradley and Alexis Mac Allister are only now getting back up to speed after missing pre-season and their issues have undoubtedly affected the overall balance of the team, while new signings Jeremie Frimpong and Alexander Isak have endured injury-interrupted starts to their respective Anfield careers.

However, Florian Wirtz has yet to make any kind of impact on the Premier League, and while Hugo Ekitike has shown off his Kop icon credentials, former Bournemouth ace Milos Kerkez has been so poor that he's lost his place in the starting line-up to an Andy Robertson in decline.  The net result is a complete absence of cohesion in a once-settled side, as underlined by their Premier League record of six wins and five defeats.

"I think last season they had a lot more consistency, and Slot's job was easier, because he was inheriting a squad from Jurgen Klopp," former Liverpool striker Dean Sturridge argued on Sky. "But this season, they have made new signings, some players have hit the ground running, but other players haven't got there yet.

"It's an unforgiving league. This expectation is for the players, just because of the price tag, to come here and be world-class footballers straight away. But it's rare that happens in the Premier League because the demands are high and the intensity of each team they're facing is better than around the world. I think some of the players are surprised by the intensity of the league - Florian Wirtz is one of them - so the chemistry the team had last season has clearly disappeared." The question is, what is Slot going to do about it?

Liverpool obviously haven't become a bad team overnight. For starters, their struggles actually pre-date - and unquestionably drove - their summer spending spree.

The Reds have played 47 times in all competitions since the turn of the year and won only 21 of those games, losing 16 in total. There are, of course, mitigating circumstances, with two of their Premier League defeats coming after they'd wrapped up their record-equalling 20th English title. But fatigue was undoubtedly a factor during a somewhat shaky second half of last season - and played a pivotal role in a trying week in March during which they were knocked out of the Champions League by Paris Saint-Germain before being upset by Newcastle in the final of the Carabao Cup.

There was, then, an acceptance that Liverpool required greater strength in depth in defence ahead of the 2025-26 campaign, as well as more creativity in midfield and a more clinical finisher up front. For all the money spent, though, Liverpool still have issues in every department.

Because of his issues adjusting the pace and physicality of the Premier League, Wirtz has been moved onto the left, where the inconsistent and often one-dimensional Gakpo has failed to fill the void left by Luis Diaz, whose incisive dribbling skills are being badly missed.

For all Trent Alexander-Arnold's defensive deficiencies, the right-back's absence is being keenly felt from an offensive perspective (and most keenly by Salah). Bradley is simply not capable of the same line-splitting passes from deep nor can he serve as an auxiliary midfielder - or at least not as effectively as Alexander-Arnold.

A fully-fit Isak should obviously end up providing the kind of cutting edge that Slot has repeatedly claimed has cost Liverpool points this season (despite Ekitike's promising start), but Konate's calamitous form is making the failure to get a deadline-day deal for Marc Guehi over the line looking like a potentially ruinous mistake. 

Basically, the new signings have failed to solve existing problems - and actually created new ones.

All is clearly not lost for Liverpool, who remain a formidable force in Europe, as they proved with their impressive 1-0 victory over an in-form Real Madrid last week. The Merseysiders may be in the midst of one of the worst title defences the Premier League has ever seen - the only reigning champions to have lost more games at this point of the season were Chelsea (six) in 2015-16 - but the only two teams above them in the table they presently look incapable of overhauling are City and Arsenal.

For all their struggles, they're still only two points behind third-placed Chelsea, meaning a top-four finish remains easily obtainable, especially for a side that should, at least in theory, improve the longer the season goes on. Certainly, Liverpool's fixture list after the final international break of 2025 offers an opportunity to build up some serious momentum going into the always crucial Christmas period.

However, a change of approach is essential, as the emphasis should very much be on performances rather than points. Liverpool don't need to be flawless between now and their meeting with Arsenal on January 8 - because the league is already gone. What's really required is an encouraging exhibition of potential, irrefutable proof of progression after three torturous months of regression. 

Liverpool clearly had a plan for all of their summer signings. It's now time to see it in action - because there is no longer anything to be gained from trying to gradually introduce the new players into the team. A cautious approach made sense while Liverpool were trying to balance integration with a title challenge but it's no longer necessary. We now need to see Slot's vision of the future - even if that means running the risk of losing more league games while also upsetting some of the old guard.

For example, if the idea was to eventually construct an attack around Wirtz's creative qualities, why not do it now? It's been argued that the German's inclusion as an attacking midfielder upsets the balance of the title-winning midfield, but £116m was committed to signing Wirtz on the understanding that he would play in his best position, meaning the onus is on Slot to come up with a solution - even if that means regularly rotating the previously undroppable Salah, who is out of form and going be away on international duty over Christmas anyway. We saw signs of a good understanding between Wirtz and Isak during the little time they've spent on the field together - so it makes perfect sense to afford them a regular run of games in the same side now that the Swede is approaching full fitness.

Slot also needs to show us what he intends to do with Ekitike, who has already proven himself far too good for the role of Isak's understudy. Either the Frenchman is paired with the British-record signing in a new-look attack or he replaces Gakpo out wide - because he shouldn't be left sitting on the bench on a weekly basis.

A big call also needs to be made on Konate. Even accounting for the injury-enforced absence of the fumbling Frenchman's obvious replacement, Giovanni Leoni, and Joe Gomez's fragile physical condition and patchy performances this season, the out-of-contract Konate simply does not deserve to be starting at the moment. Whereas the centre-back could previously relied on to at least do a good job covering for Alexander-Arnold on the right-hand side of the Liverpool defence, his latest shambolic display, against City on Sunday, showed that is no longer the case.

Of course, even the make-up of Slot's preferred back four remains something of a mystery. The presumption was that Frimpong and Kerkez were signed to provide the attacking width from full-back but, even accounting for the former's injury issues, it seems that neither new signing now features in Slot's first-choice starting line-up - which is concerning to say the least.

This, then, feels like a crucial juncture in Liverpool's season - and indeed Slot's tenure. No true fan is calling for the dismissal of a coach that won the league less than six months ago. However, evidence of a clear and coherent strategy is imperative at this point.

As Sturridge said at the Etihad, "I think Slot needs to stick with a team that he truly believes in." Because that feels like the only way to restore the fans' faith in the manager's project - and the promise of a brighter future.