How the national media reacted to Liverpool's 3-0 defeat at Manchester City in the Premier League on Sunday afternoon
Liverpool head boss Arne Slot during the Premier League match at Manchester City on November 9 2025
Liverpool head boss Arne Slot during the Premier League match at Manchester City on November 9 2025
View Image
Here we go again. Liverpool slumped to another miserable defeat with a dismal 3-0 Premier League defeat at Manchester City on Sunday afternoon.
A header from Erling Haaland and a deflected Nico Gonzalez strike put the Reds two behind at the interval before Jeremy Doku made the game safe for the home side in the second half.
It ensured another long, dreary international break ahead. And while the ECHO was in attendance and provided our usual level of coverage, here's how the national media viewed a negative result for Arne Slot's side.
Author avatar
Author avatar
Ian Ladyman of the Daily Mail points to the number of new signings Liverpool were compelled to make in the summer, an unusual situation for any title winners.
"So there is the heart of the problem," he scribes. "Liverpool have lost good players and have not yet been able to replace what they took with them when they went. Looked that in those terms, why is anybody surprised Slot’s team are struggling in a competitive league such as this?
"The lack of impact of the players mentioned here is unlikely to be permanent. Liverpool have bought well and the age profile of Slot’s squad is okay. Over time, we can expect vast improvement.
"Right now, though, in a world where short-termism rules, Liverpool’s failure to integrate their new arrivals is not so much holding them back but destroying them. Until that changes, this is a struggle that we can expect to go on."
Richard Jolly of The Independent reflected on a bad day for the Reds boss.
"It was a wretched afternoon for Slot," he pens. "It equalled his heaviest defeat as Liverpool manager; they have both come in the last four matches. This was a seventh defeat in 10 games, a fifth in the Premier League. The numbers do not paint a pretty picture.
"If Liverpool could feel themselves luckless in the first half, they could not simply chalk this down to decisions and deflections."
Barney Ronay in The Guardian thinks that Man City could now be the only team to stop runaway leaders Arsenal.
"This may or may not be the beginning of City’s title charge," he writes. "But it is surely the end of Liverpool’s defence. The champions have lost five league games with 27 still to play. Title winners generally lose between three and six. Something dramatic would have to happen to this team. But it doesn’t look like it will.
"True, Liverpool had a goal disallowed for a very silly notion of offside. They had some good spells. Florian Wirtz played well.
"But if Arne Slot is struggling to find effective patterns, the poverty of his team only served to demonstrate how peerlessly good Guardiola is at this; just as Doku’s development is a perfect example of what Guardiola loves, that wild hunger for building teams and working at players."
Finally, the tall man Paul Gorst of the ECHO believes Liverpool are not putting up much of a defence of their title.
"Arsenal's Sunderland stumble on Saturday night offered these two heavyweights the chance to make ground on the early pace-setters but Slot's side now trail Mikel Arteta's by men eight points," he says.
"It is looking increasingly like a two-horse race, even before the Christmas decorations have been fetched from the garages on Merseyside. It could be a meek relinquishing of their title on this evidence."