Liverpool’s wait to secure a Champions League spot for next season stretches on, after Arne Slot’s Reds were on the receiving end of a bruising 4-2 defeat in the Premier League on Friday night, at the hands of Unai Emery’s Aston Villa.
All the talk before the match would centre on whether the Villans would be taking this contest seriously, with the Europa League final coming up on Wednesday, against Freiburg, gifting the West Midlands side a spot in Europe’s elite competition, if they were to reign supreme in Istanbul.
Villa fans didn’t need to fear any complacency slipping into their beloved team’s performance, as Unai Emery’s men played with conviction all through the match, to put Arne Slot’s disorganised and disjointed away side to the sword.
Liverpool now have just one final game to salvage their season and somehow clinch a coveted Champions League spot. The Reds welcome Brentford to Anfield for a high-stakes finale, though many supporters will simply be relieved to see the back of a grueling and deeply disappointing second campaign under Arne Slot.
Yet, after being thoroughly outclassed at Villa Park, the pressure remains squarely on Liverpool to deliver a result on what promises to be a tense afternoon.
Here are five major talking points from the 4-2 thumping defeat, as Slot continues to skate on very thin ice in the Anfield dugout.
1. Liverpool’s set-piece woes continue
While the Champions League anthem blared out from the Villa Park speakers at the end, the Liverpool masses exited the stadium at great speed, angered by another dire performance.
It was another match where Liverpool’s set-piece woes reared their ugly head once more, with the Villa opener coming from a cleverly worked corner kick routine that eventually saw Morgan Rogers curl home a sumptuous effort past a nervy Giorgi Mamardashvili.
With Ollie Watkins’ second of the match also coming from a corner kick the away side failed to deal with, Slot’s men have now conceded 20 goals this season in the Premier League from a set-piece routine.
In terms of goals conceded from set-pieces in the overall league, Liverpool are sitting at the very bottom with that worrying number, and it’s not the only damning statistic next to their name when it comes to the volume of goals being leaked.
2. Liverpool break record that had stood since 1915
After conceding four to Emery’s intense Villa side on Friday night, the reigning Premier League champions have now given up a colossal 52 goals across 37 league games this season.
That total is the most the Reds have given up in a single league campaign since the 1914/15 season, having only conceded 41 last season on the way to the title being triumphantly hoisted aloft.
Those heroics feel like a lifetime ago now, with Liverpool sat precariously in fifth spot on a damaging 12 league defeats, after being dished out yet another reality check on their travels.
3. Liverpool’s wretched away record stretches on
To make matters worse, losing to Villa away means the Reds’ wretched away record, against teams near the top of the Premier League, stretches on.
Amazingly, Liverpool has failed to win a single game this season against the league’s top nine teams away from home, minus league leaders Arsenal, off the back of coming unstuck at Villa Park.
Slot and Co. will be hoping that the fact they’re back on home soil, when facing Brentford on the final day, stands them in good stead to pick up a positive result, but the under-fire Dutchman will need a much-improved performance from Dominik Szoboszlai against the Bees, who experienced a rare off-performance on Friday.
4. Szoboszlai experienced a rare off-night
In all fairness, apart from Virgil Van Dijk popping up with two goals for the Reds, very few Liverpool first-teamers would trudge off at the end of the 4-2 loss, happy with their efforts.
Szoboszlai, in particular, will have felt irked at his individual display, particularly as he was being talked up before the match started as being Liverpool’s Player of the Season.
The Hungarian would slip up to allow Watkins his first goal of the night, and he just would never get going, as the likes of John McGinn stole the show for the hosts instead from the midfield areas, with a superb late effort to hand the Europa League finalists an emphatic fourth goal of the evening.
5. Is the time now right for Slot to be sacked?
With 12 defeats now in the Premier League this season, and all those damning statistics going against him, it does feel as if Slot’s dismissal is inevitable down the line.
He can still save some face by securing Champions League football, finally, by overcoming Brentford.
But, picking up a pivotal result isn’t a given on the final day of the campaign, with the Fenway Sports Group surely cutting ties with the unpopular head coach, if another loss ends what has already been a sobering campaign to be involved in.
