Slot's team simply has to deliver in a week that could define their season

AFTER four successive Premier League defeats, the idea that passage to the fifth round of the Carabao Cup would have given Arne Slot extra margin for error tomorrow against Aston Villa is fanciful.

- By PAUL GORST

The Liverpool boss is firmly in the grip of his worst sequence since he pitched up on Merseyside in the summer of 2024 and the questions and the critiques are piling up by the game right now.

The injury list is growing, with Slot potentially without Curtis Jones, Alexander Isak and Ryan Gravenberch for the game against Unai Emery's men, while the fixture will also come too soon for Alisson Becker and Jeremie Frimpong, who are both recovering from hamstring issues.

The big-money buys of the summer in £125million Isak and £116m Florian Wirtz are yet to light the blue touch paper on their Anfield careers and only Hugo Ekitike, a £79m addition from Eintracht Frankfurt, has hit the ground running during a huge turnover of the playing staff in the summer months.

Slot is having trouble keeping clean sheets, his fullbacks are struggling and Mohamed Salah has looked a shadow of the player whose performances saw him finish as high as fourth in the recent Ballon d'Or rankings.