If Liverpool are to avoid suffering a fourth straight Premier League defeat tonight, they\u2019ll need to do it the hard way.<\/p>\n
Just five minutes into the match at the Gtech Community Stadium, the Reds once again failed to defend a long throw-in from Brentford\u2019s Michael Kayode, allowing Dango Ouattara to pounce and score from close range.<\/p>\n
That early setback means Arne Slot\u2019s side have now conceded the opening goal in six consecutive games, continuing an unwanted pattern of slow starts in domestic competition. In recent weeks, they\u2019ve also fallen behind early to goals from Eddie Nketiah (9 minutes), Moises Caicedo (14 minutes), and Bryan Mbeumo (just over a minute).<\/p>\n
Liverpool equal an unwanted 30-year record<\/p>\n
Football data analyst Michael Reid of Opta was quick to point out a grim statistic: this is the first time since January 1996 that Liverpool have conceded within the first 15 minutes of four straight Premier League games.<\/p>\n
Back then, Roy Evans\u2019 team managed to avoid defeat in all four matches despite early setbacks against Arsenal (3-1), Chelsea (2-2), Nottingham Forest (4-2), and Sheffield Wednesday (1-1).<\/p>\n
Slot\u2019s men have shown resilience before \u2014 coming from behind to hammer their midweek opponents after conceding first, and doing so multiple times en route to last season\u2019s title win.<\/p>\n
Still, starting games so poorly is testing that resolve. With Liverpool sitting sixth before kick-off in west London, conceding such an early goal \u2014 especially from a set-piece situation Brentford are known to exploit \u2014 will no doubt have angered the head coach.<\/p>\n
While the Reds did leave it late to win on their last visit to the Gtech nine months ago and still have time to turn things around tonight, the recurring problem of conceding early simply can\u2019t continue if they hope to secure Champions League football, let alone retain their title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If Liverpool are to avoid suffering a fourth straight Premier League defeat tonight, they\u2019ll need to do it the hard way. Just five minutes into the match at the Gtech Community Stadium, the Reds once again failed to defend a long throw-in from Brentford\u2019s Michael Kayode, allowing Dango Ouattara to pounce and score from close …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":52926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/arne-slot-2-1200x673.jpg.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52962"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52963,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52962\/revisions\/52963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}