‘The most damning aspect…’ – David Lynch delivers withering three-word description of Liverpool | OneFootball

David Lynch summed up Liverpool’s woes this season with a damning three-word description as the Reds added yet another disapponting chapter to what’s been a dismal campaign thus far.

After romping to the Premier League title last term and spending almost £450m on new signings over the summer, Arne Slot’s team were many people’s favourites to retain their crown and potentially build a dynasty in English football.

Instead, by the first week of December, they languish in eighth place in the table (they’ll be overtaken tonight if Manchester United avoid defeat at home to West Ham) and are already 11 points behind pace-setters Arsenal.

(Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images)

Lynch describes Liverpool as ‘expensively assembled strangers’

Liverpool needed a late Nordi Mukiele own goal to even salvage a point at home to promoted Sunderland last night, and with both clubs having recruited plentifully in the summer, Lynch was in no doubt as to which team looked the more cohesive.

Writing for Sports Mole, the journalist summarised: ‘As they have for much of this season, Regis Le Bris’ men showed a combination of hunger and quality to earn a deserved draw at Anfield, and they looked remarkably organised for a side that was largely thrown together over the course of a big summer preparing them for the Premier League.

‘That is arguably the most damning aspect for Slot, who can surely no longer use this summer’s spending as an excuse for his team’s woeful form.

‘Liverpool continue to look like a team of expensively assembled strangers, who are no closer to clicking now than they were during a poor start to the campaign.’

Lynch also noted that Liverpool ‘far less impressive during the second half of last season than they had been in effectively clinching the title in the first’, adding that it’d be ‘far from knee-jerk to suggest that there might be concerns over what Slot is producing’.

(Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

Sunderland looked far more cohesive than Liverpool last night

There were actually only two summer signings in the Reds’ starting XI last night compared to eight in Sunderland’s, but it was the latter which looked like the team with far more experience of playing together.

Of the eight players who joined Liverpool since the end of last season, only Wirtz would be effectively a guaranteed starter. That had been the case for Milos Kerkez until recent weeks, while Slot still seems to be flitting between Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitike as his starting centre-forward.

The Swede was given the nod on Wednesday but could have no complaints if he’s benched against Leeds at the weekend, having been a mostly peripheral presence against the Black Cats. Hopes that his goal at West Ham last Sunday would provide a launching pad for his LFC career have quickly subsided.

It took the shock of a Chemsdine Talbi goal to wake the champions from their slumber last night, and while watching them throw the kitchen sink at the visitors on the closing minutes of the game, you’d be entitled to wonder why that same urgency wasn’t shown from the start.

New signings can take time to integrate at a club, especially as part of an overhaul as radical as Liverpool’s in the summer, but we’re nearly halfway through the season and – as Lynch said – this group of players appear no closer to forming a balanced, cohesive unit where everybody works in harmony.

When the Reds were at their peak under Jurgen Klopp, you could safely predict nine of 10 players in his starting XI and feel confident that they’d get the job done.

Trying to second-guess Slot’s line-up for the Leeds game, or call the result from Elland Road, is the same ‘shot in the dark’ territory as picking the winning numbers for the National Lottery.