5 hours ago
5
Well, then: what have you got? It was the only question that needed answering from the team that once looked like conquering Europe but, lately, has cracked as easily as an autumn conker.
Could Liverpool rouse themselves and remind everyone who they are? No. Quite the opposite, in fact. By the time PSV Eindhoven rammed in a third goal and left Arne Slot bent over in horror, the only thing you could conclude is this team, at present, has nothing left to give.
What could have been a confidence-booster, a chance to plug a hole turned into a horror show. Liverpool, again, were humbled, swirling around a vortex, deeper and deeper into a crisis from which it is difficult to see where there will be an escape.
This was 90 minutes of nothingness, in terms of attacking football. In terms of defending, it was 90 minutes of embarrassing calamity. Did the majority of these players really beat Real Madrid 22 days ago? You wouldn’t back them, on this evidence, to win a game in the local Business Houses league.
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, they sang in the away end but there is no silver lining for Slot, who stood with his hands in his pocket for the final 20 minutes and couldn’t change anything.
This, be in no doubt, is a flashback to how it was in the final season of Brendan Rodgers 11 years ago.
Arne Slot was looking at the turf as if hoping it would swallow him up on another dismal night
Hapless Liverpool lost at home by three goals against PSV in the Champions League
Ibou Konate and Co suffered the latest low of an awful season and are now in crisis mode
Familiarity means Anfield wouldn’t crackle on a night such as this but, even still, you could feel an unusual level of tension and apprehension, creeping around the stands before eventually slithering onto the pitch and clinging to the players.
Those first five minutes had everyone looking on wide-eyed in disbelief. There were only 76 seconds on the clock when Georgio Mamardashvili stood on the edge of his area, looking for movement from Red statues, but heard a growl rise behind from the impatient mass on The Kop.
Possession was squandered with a long-ball forward, PSV came forward and won a corner. Szoboszlai galloped back and barked at Mamardashvili, while others pointed fingers at each other.
It wasn’t the look of a settled team and, accordingly, it wasn’t a surprise when they slipped up.
Virgil van Dijk hectored referee Alejandro Hernandez to say he had been fouled while handling the next corner but he was a guilty as child being found with his hand in the biscuit tin: Ivan Perisic, still going strong at the age of 36, swept home a nerveless penalty.
Some of the locals shrieked with dismay, others got on their feet to encourage. Ibou Konate waved his arms frantically, asking Anfield not to turn its back, which took some doing given this was the tenth – yes, that’s right, tenth – time Liverpool had conceded the first goal since September 27.
A better team than PSV would have clamped its jaws on Liverpool’s throat at this point. Everything about the hosts was fragile and in the ninth minute, when Mamardashvili stood with the ball at his feet again and saw statues in the same place, the decibel increase for the growls was stark.
That’s the thing that seems to have been forgotten. During a decade of wonderful football and outstanding achievements, it has slipped everyone’s mind that when results are bad and performances are wretched, it is a huge challenge for a Liverpool player to get on the ball.
Cody Gakpo looks exasperated after missing a simple header in the second half
Hugo Ekitike's injury was another blow on a nightmare evening for the Reds
There were wild scenes of celebration for the Dutch side who deserved their victory
Briefly there was a response. In one of the few passages of play when passes stuck, Alexis Mac Allister invited Cody Gakpo to scuttle forward, his shot was palmed away by Matej Kovar but Szoboszlai was perfectly placed to pop the rebound into an empty net.
Alles es gut, Slot will ask in his native tongue but, right now, everything was not fine. The impetus that Liverpool should have taken from equalising wasn’t there.
Van Dijk headed against the bar, Ekitike forced a save from Kovar and then had a shot (turned down) for a penalty but that was it.
You are so accustomed to whirlwinds here on a European night, inferior teams demolished in frenzies of fast football, but the thing that is so apparent about Liverpool now is the predictability and the slovenly pace. Why don’t they hunt or defend in packs any longer?
Liverpool's stars looked as though they had nothing left to give on a chastening night
Couhaib Driouech celebrates scoring the third goal of the game for PSV in their rout
Where Mo Salah, Slot and Liverpool go from here is hard to know but this was the nadir
For a team that has been so expensively assembled, they look bang average and there could not be a more damning indictment of this situation.
This has been the equivalent of buying a Grade II listed building and painting the walls garish pink while paving over the landscape garden.
Fittingly, PSV took a steamroller to them. The second goal, the killer, was provided by Guus Til in the 56th minute who had all the time in the world to run through and hold off Milos Kerkez; the third by Couhaib Driouech, who couldn’t believe the time he has to turn a shot in.
Anfield, then, began to empty. It’s becoming a horribly familiar scene.
