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Victory in Frankfurt on Wednesday, it turns out, was only temporary respite. Liverpool didn’t just slip to a fourth league defeat in a row for the first time since February 2021, but were thoroughly outplayed and outfought by Brentford. The anxious period of stoppage time the home side endured was out of keeping with everything that had gone before.
Brentford tend naturally to a direct approach anyway, but Arne Slot’s grumbling last week about Manchester United’s long balls was an open invitation. Liverpool never got to grips with the pace of Kevin Schade running in behind their back four, and they looked uncomfortable as well against Michael Kayode’s fusillade of long throws. Every side now knows that Liverpool are vulnerable to balls played in behind their full-backs. The opening goal, scored after five minutes, stemmed from a Kayode throw, but that was the result of Giorgi Mamardashvili, mopping up as Schade chased behind Conor Bradley. It was already the second time he had done so.
Some long throw specialists rely on power, the body contorted to become a grunting trebuchet, but just as the fastest bowlers or the golfers who drive the ball furthest tend to be the most graceful, so Kayode seems to generate his distance with rhythm. There is a lithe fluidity to his run up and release, the trajectory oddly flat, more metal wood than seven iron. Some long throws are dangerous because they drop so slowly that it’s difficult for defenders to achieve distance with a clearing header, but not Kayode’s. His deliveries scud on a low parabola, a more accurate version of a cross from the same position. Kristoffer Ajer flicked on and Dango Ouattara smashed in a falling volley with Liverpool’s defence apparently mesmerised.
It was Schade’s pace that brought the second on the stroke of half-time. Hugo Ekitiké lost possession and Mikkel Damsgaard, who would twice be denied by spectacular saves from Mamardashvili, opened Liverpool up with a typically incisive through-ball, Ibrahima Konaté effectively giving up the chase before Schade beat the keeper.
Full-back has been a problem position for Liverpool this season, especially on the left where Milos Kerkez looks nothing like the thrusting player he did at Bournemouth last season. He wasted possession repeatedly, confidence fraying, as well as collecting a needless booking, but he did slam in a low Bradley cross deep in first-half stoppage time.
Brentford’s players and fans protested about how long the half had been allowed to go on for – too long, it turned out, for the referee Simon Hooper who had to be replaced for the second period. But if their fear was that the goal had offered Liverpool a lifeline, it was misplaced. The home side continued to dominate and extended the lead when a foul given for Virgil van Dijk’s kick on Ouattara was deemed to have taken place inside the box. Igor Thiago converted the penalty.
Slot responded with a flurry of substitutions, most of them forwards.
By the 70th minute, Liverpool were playing a sort of 4-1-5, with Florian Wirtz and Federico Chiesa as shuttling inside forwards. Chiesa has now played more league minutes this season than he did in the entirety of last.
Wirtz, meanwhile, continues to frustrate. He has not been as bad as some have made out but, equally, when a player arrives for £116m there is always going to be expectation, and when he is a forward who fails to score or register an assist in his first eight league games, that is transformed into pressure. Back in the middle for the first time in the league since the 1-0 win over Burnley in mid-September, he looked visibly tense and, when a chance fell his way midway through the first half, he snatched at it. But he is not the only one out of sorts.
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Mohamed Salah had barely been involved when he gathered Dominik Szoboszlai’s cross with a fine first touch and lashed a shot in off the underside of the bar with a minute remaining.
Even that seemed to come from nothing, the result of a moment of Brentford carelessness rather than of concerted Liverpool pressure.
There were understandable nerves as the line approached, but despite another extended period of stoppage time, and a corner given for Caoimhín Kelleher wasting time, Brentford finished as they had been throughout: by far the superior side.
