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Jamie Carragher believes that Liverpool might be better off reverting back to the tactics that saw Arne Slot's side win the Premier League title last season — even if that means taking Florian Wirtz out of the firing line.
Liverpool has performed poorly twice in a row, losing to Crystal Palace and then Galatasaray. Even before those results, it was relying on late goals to get it out of jail.
Carragher says that the summer signings have disrupted the balance of the team, which could be one explanation for where things are going wrong. And ahead of the weekend's trip to Chelsea, he wants to see some changes.
"I don’t feel like I’m watching a top team," Carragher said on CBS Sports. "Liverpool aren’t playing football right now; they are playing basketball, and it’s just end-to-end. I don’t think top teams play like that.
"Liverpool went from a workmanlike team, and they’ve sprinkled a little bit of stardust on that with the transfers that they brought in. They haven’t gained anything going forward but they’ve lost a lot defensively.
"Right now, I don’t think the balance of the team is right and the obvious one that stands out is Florian Wirtz. He’s just not at the races at all.
"He’s a young boy coming into a new league and he’s got plenty of time to go as a Liverpool player, but right now I think he needs to come out of the team.
"Liverpool get back to where they were last season and then go from there and try and build some confidence and defensive solidity because right now it is a mess."
In the last couple of games, Liverpool has looked capable of making a defensive error at any moment. Meanwhile, it hasn't created many chances, with Slot leaving Mohamed Salah out of his starting XI midweek.
However, the Liverpool head coach was insistent that there were not many similarities between the loss at Crystal Palace and the defeat in Istanbul.
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"Disappointing, because you play football to win a game and that’s what we didn’t do," Slot said in his post-match press conference.
"For me, it was a different loss to the one we had against [Crystal] Palace because for me there was a lot more to like, especially in the first half, which was maybe different to the Palace game.
"And in the second half, it became harder and harder for us to create. First of all, because they were fighting with all they had so you have to give credit to them.
"And second of all, because we hardly played in the second half. By ‘hardly played’ I mean the ball was hardly in play."
Liverpool.com says: Taking Wirtz out of the team might help in the short term, but he has been bought for big money to make a big difference in the final third. He is a quality player and he will only get used to the new demands by being on the pitch.
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