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Liverpool head coach Arne Slot has offered his take on the Reds not having hit their peak form so far this season — explaining that a "gift" from Jurgen Klopp was behind their Premier League title victory in 2024/25.
Slot believes that teams have become more defensive against Liverpool as a means of stopping them, which is making matches very congested and often decided by set-pieces.
"We are too focused on this season, but the second part of last season had a lot of similarities," Slot said. "There is one exception: the second part of last season, we scored seven set-piece goals, which led to a lot of wins.
"This season, we conceded four, I think. And tomorrow we play Chelsea; they have scored more than 50 percent of their goals from set-pieces, so this is the new reality in the Premier League.
"We were doing this really well in the second part of last season, and this year we have had many good chances from set-pieces, but we unfortunately didn't score yet.
"We have been very close. Ibou [Konate] had a big chance against Galatasaray and Crystal Palace, so I'm very happy about the amount of chances we generate from set-pieces, but we haven't scored yet.
"At this moment in time, I would say we are a bit unlucky. If it goes throughout the whole season, then it might be about something else.
"But what I'm trying to say is open play goals, second part of last season and the first part of last season, that is the main difference. I don't think we do things different but I do see other teams doing things different to us.
"The first part of last season, Jurgen [Klopp] gave me a lot of gifts, but one of the gifts he also gave me was ending up third the year before, and fifth the year before.
"Him being so well known, the new manager came in and everybody thought, 'Let's start to play against Liverpool.'
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"Teams played in a completely different way in the first half of the season against us than they did when we were top of the league after half a season.
"I can see this going now in this part of the season, and we have to find answers to that. Last season, one of the answers was set-pieces, like many teams unlock low blocks with set-pieces. We haven't done that yet."
Liverpool.com says: It is likely that the additions of Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak were largely with breaking down low blocks in mind. Hugo Ekitike is another who can produce a bit of magic to score a goal. Slot knows the problem; now he needs to find a fix.
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