Arne Slot has openly discussed Liverpool’s struggles against long-ball teams, and it looks as though opponents have sussed the champions out this season.
The Reds spent Saturday night being bullied by Brentford, with the hosts’ long throw-ins causing mayhem, as well as their general physicality.
For Liverpool, it has been a disastrous start to the defence of their Premier League title, with a series of issues culminating all at once.
A distinct change in style appears to have taken place in the league over the summer, though, and the Reds are suffering because of it.
Teams are proving to be far more direct, with set-pieces becoming increasingly prevalent, led by title favourites Arsenal.
A new graphic shared by markrstats on X shows how teams are now going long against Liverpool far more than anyone else, and quickly, seeing it as a weakness to exploit.
Sadly for the champions, it is working, with Slot’s men so often succumbing to set-pieces and losing second-ball battles – making it a simple strategy for others to follow suit.
Despite having two aerially dominant centre-backs, opposition sides are finding success by playing direct, and it will continue for as long as Liverpool do not find a solution.
It seems that this season, all opponents across the league have figured Liverpool out — go long as quickly as possible pic.twitter.com/kNUIHSf4BI
— markstats (@markrstats) October 26, 2025
This is something Slot even spoke about on the eve of the Brentford game, with the Dutchman noticing the change in approach against his side.
“The main difference between this season and last season is the playing styles we face,” Slot said.
“I’ve looked when we had a few days off at how many long balls we already had to defend – 178 in seven games and then United came and we had to defend 59 long balls.
“That’s different from the first half of last season.”
Despite this, Slot seemingly isn’t focusing enough on eradicating Liverpool’s Achilles heel, once again bemoaning it after Saturday’s game.
“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,” he admitted.
“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 either finds a way to deal with this problem or Liverpool will continue to drop points, but it raises question marks over the summer transfer business.
Two diminutive full-backs in Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez were signed, despite a more physical style of play being introduced this season, while Florian Wirtz is also lightweight.
Injuries and poor form certainly aren’t helping Liverpool, but Slot’s reaction to his side being bullied week in, week out is a concern.
It’s almost as though he has accepted he can’t deal with it!
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