sport news Liverpool have nine games to come in an action-packed October - including ... trends now
Things are not going quite right for Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool at the start of the new season. The pulsating, high-energy, heavy metal roar that has deafened defences over the past few seasons has been turned down to little more than a murmur at times this campaign.
For a side that came within a point of winning the Premier League on two occasions in the last five years, the stuttering start they have made is well below expectations, and leaves their prospects balancing precariously on a knife-edge.
Where Manchester City have gone from strength to strength, Liverpool are now one bad result away from facing a 10-point deficit on their biggest rivals, a gap that would surely prove insurmountable and therefore put an end to any title charge with more than 30 games still to play.
Liverpool are currently eighth in the Premier League with only two wins from six games
Mo Salah has struggled to replicate his own stunning best form with only four goals this season
With four midfielders out injured, a star forward who is failing to hit the heights he has in the past, and a leaky defence, Klopp now faces a month that will either make or break his season, and his side will almost certainly struggle to turn the ship around in the face of a packed nine-game schedule.
As well as three must-win Champions League ties, Liverpool are also faced with the prospect of a visit to high-flying Arsenal, who look to be playing their best football in years, before locking horns with Pep Guardiola's City just a week later.
Could Liverpool - the team that has become arguably the second best side in the world, reached three Champions League finals in five years and won 357 points over four seasons - be out of the title race before the World Cup even starts?
Having laid down a heavy gauntlet with a 3-1 Community Shield win over City in the season's curtain-raiser, Klopp looked to have stolen a march on his rival Guardiola, but in the two months since that statement victory the two sides could hardly have had more contrasting fortunes.
Liverpool have won just two matches in the six Premier League games since. A 9-0 humbling of Bournemouth teased fans with what they are truly capable of, before a 98th-minute winner was needed to secure three points against Newcastle just four days later as the facade was ripped away.
And now they stand looking over a precipice, knowing they can already ill afford any more slip-ups, as they prepare for the 29-day onslaught that will see them play on average once every three days.
Liverpool won the Community Shield in July but have failed to impress in the two months since
Pep Guardiola's Manchester City already look miles ahead of Liverpool with 23 goals so far
An over-reliance on Mo Salah has been made all too apparent in the absence of Sadio Mane - who looks to have been a far more influential part of Klopp's side than he was ever given credit for - and a constant chopping and changing of a midfield held together with plasters has exposed defensive frailties which braggadocio and bluster had seemingly hidden.
It is hard to believe that Virgil van Dijk once went an entire season without being dribbled past, and the previously world-beating Dutchman appears to have shrunk of late as he has begun to lose his aura. It says a lot when 21-year-old Khvicha Kvaratskhelia seems to lick his lips in anticipation at the prospect of taking on a defender who previously barred the way for the likes of Eden Hazard and Lionel Messi.
Van Dijk is still probably the best defender in the Premier League, but players are now beginning to remember that he is mortal after all - which was where half his power lies - and it certainly doesn't help when his fellow defenders are seen to give up the chase, leaving him to bear the brunt of the memes against Napoli.
Trent Alexander-Arnold was seen walking in defence as the Reds were thumped 4-1 by Napoli
For all the mercurial talent that Trent Alexander-Arnold has going forward, being caught walking back towards your goal in during an opposition attack is unforgivable. Doing so twice in 16 days is unfathomable. No wonder Gareth Southgate appears to have given up on fitting him into his squad for Qatar.
As a result, Klopp's previously air-tight defence has begun to leak goals this season, having conceded first in five of their first eight games of the campaign. Only one of those occasions resulted in a victory, with Fabio Carvalho's 98th-minute winner against Newcastle changing the narrative on what was in essence a very shaky, almost nervous performance by the hosts.
Darwin Nunez has only played six games after a three-match suspension for head-butting
Conceding first is never a good thing, but you can get away with it if your forwards are firing on all cylinders. However, Salah's slow start by his own standards has left his side without crucial goals to alleviate some of the pressure on an already under-fire defence. Not to mention your £85million striker spending three games out after head-butting a defender.
The international break will have given Klopp the chance to take
