Brentford 3-2 Liverpool: 5 talking points with Arne Slot’s blind spot a problem

Arne Slot‘s decisions will rightly come into question after Liverpool latest defeat, 3-2 at Brentford, and his unwavering faith in Mohamed Salah is one of those.

Brentford 3-2 Liverpool

Premier League (9) | Gtech Community Stadium
October 25, 2025

Goals: Ouattara 5′, Schade 45′ Igor pen 60′; Kerkez 45+4′, Salah 89′

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1. The transition season is here

Well, we all expected it immediately following Slot’s arrival, but it seems the dreaded transition season has instead arrived this time around.

Disjointed forward play, disorganisation at the back – all the hallmarks of the difficult campaign that tends to follow major change are there.

And so perhaps we need to adjust our expectations around what this year could potentially bring for Liverpool.

Put simply, it is already obvious that this team isn’t anywhere near good enough to win the Premier League or the Champions League.

As such, securing Champions League qualification looks to be the limit of their ambitions and should be the new aim in the dressing room.

 

2. Liverpool have to embrace their new reality

Plenty of football managers have high ideals about how football should be played, until the Premier League smacks them in the face – just ask Pep Guardiola.

And you wonder if this season is going to be a nine-month-long journey towards Liverpool’s coaching and recruitment staff realising that their plans for this team are doomed.

Whether they like it or not, football in England has moved into an era in which set-pieces and physicality are all the matters, and you either adapt or die.

That means that using a diminutive creator at No. 10, flying full-backs and a versatile collection of midfielders lacking specialist roles probably isn’t going to cut it.

Unfortunately, this has only become clear after a summer of major surgery.

 

3. Don’t sign Marc Guehi

Liverpool’s struggles with buildup in deep areas at times this season have made the failure to sign Marc Guehi this summer look like a fatal error.

Yet the Reds could well end up feeling they have dodged a bullet in not acquiring the England international at the end of a campaign that has, thus far, been defined by weakness from set-pieces.

Make no mistake, Guehi is a fine player, but at this point it would be an act of self-harm to add a centre-back so lacking in aerial prowess to this team.

Instead, more dominance in the air is needed through the entire team in order to compete in a Premier League that increasingly demands it.

Liverpool’s recruitment staff appear to have been behind the curve on that development, but they have a chance to correct it in the coming transfer windows.

 

4. Slot’s Salah blind spot is a problem

It is easy enough to understand why a manager might have major faith in a player who just last season provided him the greatest individual campaign in Premier League history.

But that faith should only stretch so far, and Salah is surely testing its limits with his performances in recent weeks.

Yes, the Egyptian scored, but he also put in arguably his worst performance in a Liverpool shirt, completing 16 of his 23 passes, one of four dribbles and winning just two of 11 duels.

This was such a bad showing that even his goal did not justify leaving him on the pitch, and Slot has some serious thinking to do about whether he can be dropped.

 

5. Jones and Szoboszlai emerge with credit

If just two players who can hold their head high after this latest shambles, it is surely Curtis Jones and Dominik Szoboszlai.

They could do little more than watch the ball fly over their heads whenever Brentford attacked, but what little control Liverpool did exert came from their work rate and use of the ball.

If the Reds are to find a solid foundation going forward, they have to be part of it, perhaps alongside Ryan Gravenberch rather than Florian Wirtz – though Jones’ late injury could already put paid to that.

They might also wish to ask their teammates why they do not get a little bit more support.