Gary Neville has revealed concerns that Liverpool have lost the physical edge which kept them punching above their weight for so long.
The Reds have endured their worst start to a league campaign in a decade, with just two wins from eight games leaving them 14 points off Arsenal at the top after Sunday's 3-2 defeat at the Emirates. Despite twice clawing back a one-goal deficit, many of the same problems surfaced in North London - none of which look like a quick fix.
A marked drop in the pressing from the front-three and midfield - the very thing that made Liverpool so exciting over the last six seasons under Jurgen Klopp - has seen opposition teams able to exploit a high-line. And Neville has expressed concerns that the Reds look wiped out.
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“I’ve praised Liverpool and Klopp for the last five, six years for the levels they’ve reached – it’s been off the scale – but I felt before the game Arsenal fans were expecting to win,” Neville told The Overlap, in partnership with Sky Bet. “I felt Liverpool were just flexing their muscles a little bit in the first half, but that second half alarmed me.
"I’m not talking about playing badly, I’m talking about the physical depression in their performance seemed alarming to me.”
The Sky Sports pundit added that the Reds have lost the essence of what makes a Klopp side so exciting: “When he [Klopp] first came in, the first two years was frantic. It wasn’t really a polished team; it was just brilliant to watch and exciting. Then they became good at possession – and you had the pressing, the counter-attack.
“They like the slow game now, but the frantic bit, the pressing has gone, and that was everything to me about a Klopp team. The emotion of last season is just catching up with them and not having anything in the tank this season. I can look back on moments where that’s happened.
“Jürgen Klopp has just been punching above his weight for so long when you look at the net spend of all the other teams, and what he’s achieved has just been off the scale to be competing with that [Manchester] City team."
Sunday's defeat at the Emirates might well have put Liverpool out of the title race, and the Reds face a stern test of their resilience if they want to make the Champions League places, with Chelsea, Tottenham and Manchester United all vying for what is likely to be two spots behind City and Arsenal.
But while Neville doesn't believe Klopp's side will make it, he admitted that so much can change in this unprecedented campaign.
He added: “I don’t think Liverpool will finish in the top four… but this season is a marathon more than most, and the momentum will keep swinging back and forward – the Queen’s passing, the World Cup – it’s a disrupted season. Nothing has really got started yet, and coming back from the World Cup everything could be completely different.”
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