The first Blood Red column of the New Year assesses the paucity of Liverpool's attacking output and calls for an improvement
Liverpool's Dutch manager Arne Slot crouches on the touchline with his team during the English Premier League football match between Liverpool and Leeds United at Anfield in Liverpool, north west England on January 1, 2026. (Photo by Darren Staples / AFP via Getty Images) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE. No use with unauthorized audio, video, data, fixture lists, club/league logos or 'live' services. Online in-match use limited to 120 images. An additional 40 images may be used in extra time. No video emulation. Social media in-match use limited to 120 images. An additional 40 images may be used in extra time. No use in betting publications, games or single club/league/player publications. /
Arne Slot crouches on the touchline during the Premier League match between Liverpool and Leeds United at Anfield on New Year's Day
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During his time as the head coach of Liverpool, Arne Slot has professed that the second best time to judge a Premier League table is at the halfway point of a season. It's a fair point, but the Reds boss might not like the answer that confronts him at the beginning of 2026.
Slot may be able to point to an eight-game unbeaten sequence and a position inside the top four as proof that his Anfield project is back on track after a deeply disturbing run between late September and November, when his side, incredibly, lost nine of 12 games.
There has been a solidity to Liverpool in recent weeks that was much needed, but that felt like scant consolation for those who braved the elements for the goalless draw with Leeds United on New Year's Day.
That January 1 result bore no passing resemblance to the most recent one at Anfield, which came over two years ago against Manchester United. In that particular game of December 2023, Jurgen Klopp's Reds battered at their visitors' door, racking up 34 shots in total with eight on target.
Leeds, by contrast, were not put under anywhere near the same sort of pressure with just four shots on target, only one of which came in the second half when Dominik Szoboszlai worked Lucas Perri with a relatively routine stop from outside the area.
There's a lack of fluency to the play at present and Slot's insistence that the only way to open teams up is either through a moment of magic or a set-piece has been a familiar trope.
He may be oversimplifying for effect at times but that repeated assertion is beginning to sound like a coach who is unable to piece together a team brimming with ideas and verve in the final third.
In the interest of fairness, there is some mitigation for Slot. The paucity of the attacking performance against Daniel Farke's side was served up at a time when he is without the Premier League two highest scorers of last season in Mohamed Salah and Alexander Isak and the head coach later confirmed that Florian Wirtz, a bright spark of December, was suffering from a minor hamstring issue throughout on Thursday.
Between the pair, Salah and Isak registered 52 goals last season and there is not a team in European football who wouldn't suffer from the absence of such gifted marksmen. The leg break to Isak, in particular, was simply dreadful luck.
At the halfway point of last season, Liverpool found themselves with a six-point advantage and a game in hand over second-placed Arsenal. Fast-forward 12 months and they are a dozen behind the Gunners and have all but conceded their title. The top four is now the summit of the ambitions and that is an unusual sensation for supporters to have to get used to, certainly since the turn of the decade.
It may even be one that the Reds secure in relative comfort given the chasing pack are inconsistent and fraught with issues of their own, particularly managerless Chelsea, who look set to appoint rookie Liam Rosenior to the hotseat at Stamford Bridge.
But a place in the top four should not act as a security blanket when Liverpool look like a team who have lost their fear factor. Mikel Arteta once famously likened a visit to the red half of Merseyside to a spin in a washing machine, such was the dizzying and disorienting nature of it for the away side.
Teams are looking more comfortable than they have done in years just now at Anfield, however, and the 30 goals scored is Liverpool's lowest tally at this point of the campaign since 2015/16, when Klopp was weeks into a new job as Reds boss, attempting to get a tune out of the likes of Christian Benteke and Jordon Ibe.
The introduction of players who might be defined as midfielders into the wider, more attacking positions has helped tighten things up. With Wirtz encouraged to drift from the left and Szoboszlai ably supporting three others from a wide right role, Liverpool have started to concede fewer chances and it has undoubtedly improved things defensively.
But the balance has gone too far in the opposite direction, leaving them looking so toothless.
The need to go 'back to basics' was something that was uttered a lot at the beginning of December when the Reds were trounced 7-1 on aggregate in games at Anfield against Nottingham Forest and PSV, but eight matches later, the team still looks unsure of itself as an attacking outfit.
The scars of that run are clearly still on show and captain Virgil van Dijk called for more confidence to be shown by his colleagues after the Leeds draw.
Champions League qualification still looks a safe bet but those calling for a bit more swagger and panache en route are entirely within their rights as the wait for a complete, 90-minute performance befitting of the Premier League champions goes on.