Injuries and pressing problems have exposed Liverpool's defensive strategy

Liverpool head to the Emirates Stadium to face Arsenal on Sunday and the 9-1 Gunners have usurped the Reds as the most likely challengers to champions Manchester City in the Premier League title betting.

Liverpool, who trail Arsenal by 11 points with a game in hand, are out to 12-1 to land a 20th domestic crown, from a best-priced 11-4 at the start of the season.

Their stuttering start to the campaign, coupled with the Gunners' impressive form, means they are 8-5 outsiders for Sunday's clash, having gone off as 10-11 favourites for the same fixture in March.

The Reds picked up the most Premier League points in the second half of last season, winning 16 of their last 19 games, but they have won only two of seven in the league this term and, as the accompanying table shows, their vulnerability at the back has proved costly.

At their best, Jurgen Klopp's side play with an intensity on and off the ball that overwhelms opposing teams but that intensity has been evident only in patches at the start of the 2022-23 season.

Liverpool's Premier League statistics over the past two seasons

Teams have passed through Liverpool with greater ease and Klopp offered an explanation this week, saying: "We have a really brave way of defending usually and when the timing in our defending is not perfect we leave a gap open. That was always the case, but because of the pressure we made on the boy on the ball, nobody really recognised [it]."

This season Liverpool's pressing stats have dropped from 141 pressures per game to 121 and the decline in their attacking-third press has been significant.

Their playing style – more so than most other teams – is reliant on the effectiveness of their pressing because their attacking full-backs are so aggressive that any failure to win the ball back higher up the pitch leaves them more exposed and gives opponents more space.

Liverpool's opponents have benefited from that this term, racking up chances worth more expected goals per game, and converting them at almost double the rate of last season despite the efforts of the goalkeeper. Alisson continues to post impressive shot-stopping stats but opponents are being presented with a slightly higher quality of chance and have been more ruthless in burying them.

It is tempting to try to identify one factor or one person to blame but Liverpool's slow start looks like a collective case of small drop-offs and imbalances across the pitch combining to result in a larger decline.

Injuries, fatigue, confidence and an ageing squad are all contributing factors, and Reds fans will hope some of those naturally heal themselves, allowing the side to rediscover their longer-term higher baseline of performance.

In midfield, Curtis Jones and Naby Keita are yet to feature in the league, while Jordan Henderson and Thiago are working their way back to fitness.

The way the Liverpool squad is constructed means they could probably cope with one or two missing pieces but not this many at the same time.

Last season, veteran James Milner rotated in for 25 per cent of their Premier League minutes, and this term he has played almost twice as much, which would not have been part of Klopp's plan at the start of the season.

Liverpool had the fourth-oldest squad in the division last season and have fielded the third-oldest team this time around.

Key contributors Henderson, Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Luis Diaz all made 60 or more appearances for club and country in 2021-22 and it is possible that the physical and mental demands of attempting to keep pace with Manchester City – and falling just a few kicks short of winning the quadruple – have left their mark.

The Reds' title-winning campaign of 2019-20 was built on taking the lead early and managing games later on. This term, however, they have led for only 106 minutes, conceding the first goal in five of their seven fixtures.

That could be a statistical quirk or it could represent a mental hangover from last term – they conceded first in each of their final four league games as the tank began to empty in May, before losing 1-0 to Real Madrid in the Champions League final at the end of the month.

On the surface Liverpool's overall stats appear fine, but those numbers were not collected evenly as a lot of their output came in August's 9-0 rout of Bournemouth.

They will hope their finishing 'luck' is more evenly distributed as the season goes on as, despite not being at their best, they created enough chances against Everton, and in the first half against Crystal Palace, to have turned those draws into mood-lifting wins.

The most likely outcome is that Klopp and his players overcome their early-season struggles and start to resemble something closer to the Liverpool we are used to seeing as returning players get up to speed and the hangover from last term's efforts wears off.

However, there are also some small red flags, as in 2020-21, when injuries and a Covid-condensed schedule negatively affected Liverpool more than most Premier League clubs.

They only just secured a Champions League spot at the end of that campaign and, with the top-four bar likely to be higher this season, they need to rediscover their intensity quickly, with fixtures against Arsenal and Manchester City next on the schedule.

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