Arne Slot surprised by extent of Liverpool’s dip in form

Arne Slot admitted he did not see Liverpool’s alarming dip in form coming after they slipped to a fourth straight defeat.

The Reds’ Premier League title defence already appears in tatters after they were beaten 3-2 at Brentford thanks to goals from Dango Ouattara, Kevin Schade and Igor Thiago.

Milos Kerkez pulled one back and Mohamed Salah ended his recent goal drought, but the champions are still in the doldrums and could be seven points behind leaders Arsenal by the end of the weekend.

“Disappointing, again,” said Reds boss Slot. “I was hoping for and expecting a better performance. It was far from what we are used to. Even when we have been losing our performances were better than tonight.

“Teams seem have a certain playing style against us, which is a very good strategy to play, and we haven’t found an answer yet.

“You cannot even compete, which we don’t do at the moment – we don’t compete up there – because we simply concede too many goals.

“It definitely also has to do with if you change quite a lot during the summer, then I think it’s not a surprise that it can go a bit like this. But I didn’t expect it to go with four losses in a row, let that be clear.”

Slot was well aware of Brentford’s threat from long throws – he said it was all that they worked on in training on Friday – but Liverpool still could not handle them as they fell behind after only five minutes.

Michael Kayode’s delivery was nodded on by Kristoffer Ajer at the near post and Ouattara got ahead of Kerkez to hook the ball home.

post-match scenes