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Currently sitting outside the European places in the Premier League table, it is clear that things haven't gone smoothly for Liverpool so far this season.
Jeremy Doku and Erling Haaland ran riot against the Reds over the weekend, and Arne Slot now faces an international break off the back of another disappointing defeat. Already this season, Liverpool has lost more times in the league than it did in the whole of the last campaign.
"The last thing I should speak about now is the title race," Slot said at the Etihad Stadium. "We should first focus on getting results — result after result after result — before we can even think about that, and the reality is that we are eighth now."
While it might not feel much of a consolation at the moment — and overhauling even one of Arsenal or Manchester City, let alone both, feels highly unlikely — there is one thing for Liverpool to look forward to when it returns.
In its last run of games, though it should of course have performed better and earned more points, Liverpool has played Manchester City, Chelsea, Manchester United, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace (twice), and Real Madrid.
No game in the Premier League is easy, and there is no doubt that Liverpool has not been playing well. But each of those fixtures, even when the Reds are in form, contains the potential for dropped points.
Slot has mentioned several times in recent weeks that Liverpool has had to play lots of away games in a short period of time. It would be fair to classify that as an explanation more than an excuse.
In contrast, in the run of nine games that leads up to Liverpool's trip to Arsenal in January, the Reds are set to play seven teams currently in the bottom half of the Premier League table.
The hardest away trip, on paper at least, is Spurs, who have struggled for form at home under Thomas Frank.
The visit to Inter Milan in the Champions League will be tough, but Liverpool took the pressure off there with its win over Real Madrid, and by then should also have beaten PSV.
After playing Nottingham Forest at Anfield, there is a trip to West Ham and then a home match with Sunderland. A trip to Leeds United follows, before Brighton travels to Merseyside.
A visit to Tottenham comes before Christmas, with a relatively kind festive schedule: Wolves and Leeds at Anfield in quick succession, before the game away at Fulham.
Quite simply, a normal level of performance will lead to Liverpool picking up three points more often than not. The aim, of course, will be to get very close to the maximum.
At the same time, Arsenal has Tottenham (a unique game for the Gunners in that it is a derby), Chelsea (at Stamford Bridge), Brentford, and Aston Villa as its next four.
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Manchester City will face Newcastle United, Leeds, Fulham, and Sunderland next, with tricky games in Europe against Bayer Leverkusen and Real Madrid too.
"I have been in the game quite a long time [to know] that seasons aren't decided in November or December," Virgil van Dijk told reporters at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday.
While that isn't necessarily true if there is a big enough buffer created and Slot knows his team needs to improve quickly, it is unquestionable that Liverpool has faced a much harder schedule of late than any of its rivals. Soon, it will have the chance to make the most of a reversal.
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