Back to basics, says Virgil van Dijk. What basics are they? What does basic mean in the context of a Liverpool team that won the Premier League at walking pace and spent the best part of half a billion notes in the summer making it better?
The signing of Alexander Isak felt like conquest, Arne Slot striding through the gates of St James’ Park on the last day of the window like Alexander the Great, nose in the air, setting fire to the Gallowgate.
The £125m capture of Newcastle’s most important player was a British record that broke the previous mark set by the £115m arrival of Florian Wirtz. Oh, and don’t forget the £69m purchase of Hugo Ekitike, the hottest young thing in Europe.
Slot was entitled to feel good about himself. How could it be otherwise? Managing Liverpool in August appeared the easiest job in football and even though the first five matches of the season were not perfect, the table was.
We can see now that all was not as it seemed, with Liverpool or Slot. Liverpool’s success last term was predicated to a degree on the unforeseen unravelling of Manchester City. This allowed Slot to progress unencumbered with a squad inherited from Jurgen Klopp. He was never under the kind of all-stations pressure he is now.
Liverpool's Virgil van Dijk (left) reacts during the Premier League match at Anfield, Liverpool. Picture date: Saturday November 22, 2025. PA Photo. Photo credit should read: Peter Byrne/PA Wire. RESTRICTIONS: EDITORIAL USE ONLY No use with unauthorised audio, video, data, fixture lists, club/league logos or "live" services. Online in-match use limited to 120 images, no video emulation. No use in betting, games or single club/league/player publications.
Liverpool have lost six of their past seven Premier League matches (Photo: PA)
Slot could even allow the January sale of Luis Diaz to Bayern Munich without suspecting a fault had opened. How premature does that feel today after six defeats in seven Premier League matches? Not only have Liverpool lost the input of a world-class striker on the left, his most plausible replacement, Cody Gakpo, has been mucked about to accommodate at varying times Isak, Ekitike and Wirtz.
Though Gakpo played the full 90 against Nottingham Forest, negative momentum has sucked the energy from the team. Isak lasted less than 70 minutes and once again left the lightest of imprints. Slot cannot but use a man he broke the bank to acquire, a problem that exacerbates cumulatively.
Ekitike looks the most promising of the lot but failed to get off the bench against Forest as Slot groped in the dark for a solution. It was perhaps a mercy that Wirtz returned injured from international duty with Germany, sparing Slot the torment of trying to fit him into a system to which he appears wholly unsuited.
Liverpool’s transfer policy turned cosmic to future-proof the champions against the gathering threat of Arsenal and any Manchester City rebound. In addition to the attacking trident Liverpool threw in a couple of full-backs, Milos Kirkez and Jeremie Frimpong, to offset the loss of Trent Alexander-Arnold and the ageing Andy Robertson.
This blanket approach broke the old Arsene Wenger paradigm that limits the number of useful additions in any window to three. Any more than that becomes disruptive, Wenger argued during his peak years at Arsenal.
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 04: Florian Wirtz of Liverpool takes on Federico Valverde and Eder Militao of Real Madrid during the UEFA Champions League 2025/26 League Phase MD4 match between Liverpool FC and Real Madrid C.F. at Anfield on November 04, 2025 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
Wirtz has struggled to settle at Anfield following his £115m transfer (Photo: Getty)
In addition to the new faces Liverpool went all-in on retaining those twin pillars of Klopp’s creation, Mo Salah and Van Dijk. Meeting the hefty contract demands of thirty-something veterans ran counter to the Moneyball principal of investing in youth and all-but mandated their selection despite the increasing likelihood of decline. And so it has played out with Salah getting minutes his form does not deserve and Van Dijk looking laboured.
Slot has hardly coped with grace as the ground beneath him has shifted. If successive defeats in London to Palace and Chelsea were dismissed as surprises a third consecutive loss to Manchester United landed like a ton of bricks, evincing from Slot the first signs of brain fade.
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Liverpool did not lose on footballing grounds, but because United would not meet them on their own terms. It was anti-football that beat them, he said, a blizzard of long balls that he neither expected nor for which he had planned.
The temerity of it, United choosing not to pander to Slot’s prejudices. Slot doubled down on his arrogance three days later after a 5-1 victory against Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League, a win made possible, he explained, because the opponent was brave enough to play a game he recognised.
Slot’s refusal to acknowledge what is in front of him is making things worse. Fuelled by his intransigence, Liverpool have fallen from the top to the bottom half of the table. The key to improvement is not dogma but humility, without which more Forest fires beckon.