Liverpool\u2019s tough spell continued over the weekend with another setback, as they fell to defeat against Brentford. The result marked their fourth consecutive Premier League loss under Arne Slot, leaving the Reds down in seventh place.<\/p>\n
While much of the discussion has centred on the struggles of new arrivals Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz, several key players from last season have also failed to hit their previous heights \u2014 notably captain Virgil van Dijk.<\/p>\n
Speaking on The Rest Is Football (via TBR Football), Alan Shearer criticised van Dijk and his defensive partner Ibrahima Konate for their poor showing at Brentford.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re just bad all over the pitch,\u201d Shearer said. \u201cYou can talk about the midfield and the lack of protection, or the attack not clicking, but defensively \u2014 my word. Van Dijk and Konate were a mess. The full-backs have had plenty of criticism, and rightly so, but the centre-backs were dreadful. Both of them were all over the place at Brentford.\u201d<\/p>\n
Micah Richards echoed Shearer\u2019s comments, suggesting van Dijk\u2019s form has dipped partly because he\u2019s not getting enough support from Konate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were both poor,\u201d Richards admitted. \u201cBut I think Van Dijk\u2019s struggling because he\u2019s having to do too much on his own. In the past, he\u2019s been the one saving Liverpool time and again, but now he needs Konate to step up \u2014 and that\u2019s not happening. You can\u2019t have both centre-halves off form at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liverpool now face mounting pressure to turn things around quickly if they are to keep their Premier League title hopes alive, as their grip on the crown continues to weaken.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Liverpool\u2019s tough spell continued over the weekend with another setback, as they fell to defeat against Brentford. The result marked their fourth consecutive Premier League loss under Arne Slot, leaving the Reds down in seventh place. While much of the discussion has centred on the struggles of new arrivals Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz, several …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":53066,"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-53065","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\/COS-FeaturedHero-Image-Templates-5-10-768x462.jpg.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53065","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=53065"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53067,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53065\/revisions\/53067"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/53066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}