Soft underbelly threatens top-four bid

AS the rest of his teammates trudged off the Vitality Stadium pitch, heads bowed in disappointment, a despondent Dominik Szoboszlai stood motionless, hands on hips, unable to comprehend the climax to this game.

- By PAUL GORST

Alisson Becker collides with Joe Gomez

He, more than any other in this Liverpool squad, does not really deserve what is happening this season.

Eventually ushered off the pitch by Mohamed Salah, it was clear this cut deep for the No.8 - and how could it not after another all-action display, once more across multiple positions, yielded nothing?

It looked for all the world here as if Liverpool were heading for a fifth successive draw of 2026 in the Premier League, after Virgil van Dijk's header at the end of the first half had been added to by Szoboszlai's sublime free kick, his second of the week.

But once again, the Reds' failure to handle the revolution taking place at the summit of the English game proved their undoing, and a long throw in the 95th minute caused just enough havoc for Amine Adli to profit, making it 3-2 with the final touch of the match.

And when the great carve-up of Liverpool's season begins in May, when Arne Slot, his staff, and perhaps sporting director Richard Hughes, sit down to assess the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all, it will be this soft underbelly that will go some way towards explaining how a title defence disintegrated so quickly and why the champions were left with little but a dogfight for the fourth spot in the second half of the campaign.