On a slippery SLOPE

SOUNESS REVEALS VAN DIJK WORRIES AS REDS’ DEFESNIVE ROT SETTING IN

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done the hard yards by winning the club's 20th championship against Tottenham Hotspur the previous month.

The problems are multiplying for the manager and his players right now; they are bereft of confidence and quality has deserted so many of those who sauntered to the title last term with four games to spare.

Some bookmakers have even made Slot the favourite to be the next Premier League manager sacked and, while Fenway Sports Group have proven themselves as some of the more patient owners around, there are major question marks around how this is all turned around now.

Liverpool have kept just four clean sheets since the title was confirmed as theirs in late April and only rock-bottom Wolverhampton Wanderers’ 41 is worse than the champions’ tally of 39 goals conceded across Europe's top-five leagues since May.

The caveat there, of course, is that Slot and his players had already

But those halcyon days of spring seem a long time ago now and how much insulation those days are affording Slot is very much open to debate.

"When your team are conceding goals, you automatically look at goalkeepers and your back four" Liverpool legend Graeme Souness tells the ECHO. “I was at the Community Shield at Wembley, the first day of the season, when they played Crystal Palace and, for me, they weren't right in midfield.

“People are saying that Dominik Szoboszlai has had a great start to the season - with the ball, yes. But without the ball I'm not sure with the transitions.

"Alexis Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch are good at that - in those three midfield players you have experience in winning the Premier League and then you try and introduce Florian Wirtz into that and I think he’s playing catch up.

“For the rest of the squad, they're conceding goals that they don’t normally.