Liverpool’s 3-0 defeat to Manchester City at the Etihad left them eight points adrift of Premier League leaders Arsenal and renewed concerns about their physicality and intensity. Arne Slot’s side were outplayed and, according to many observers, physically outmuscled across large spells of the game.
Pundits were blunt in their assessments, noting Liverpool looked visibly weaker and slower in key moments and struggled to impose themselves on City. Critics pointed to a lack of bite when trying to disrupt Manchester City’s build-up and questioned whether Liverpool had the stamina and aggression required at the top level.
Some context helps explain part of the decline. Liverpool had an intense Champions League tie with Real Madrid on Tuesday, while City played Borussia Dortmund the following day, meaning Liverpool actually had an extra day’s recovery ahead of the Etihad. Still, the underlying data points to deeper issues beyond fixture timing.
Numbers from the match highlighted a worrying gap. Liverpool’s duel success rate was just 38.8% — one of the lowest single-game figures this season for any Premier League side — despite overall season numbers that had previously ranked well for duels won. At the Etihad City made 17 tackles to Liverpool’s eight, and tracking data suggested City covered roughly nine kilometres more collectively in the match. Across the league City lead the charts for distance covered per 90 minutes; Liverpool sit near the bottom.
That drop in running and physical output has been partly deliberate under Slot. He adopted a more measured approach than Jurgen Klopp’s high-energy style, which helped conserve legs and still delivered a title last season. But this term the effectiveness of those lower-energy patterns has fallen away: Liverpool are making fewer tackles and interceptions combined than in any of the previous seven Premier League seasons, and their pressing metrics have dipped.
Pressing, once a defining strength, is clearly under strain. Both overall pressures and counter-pressures (pressures within two seconds of a turnover) have fallen substantially. Klopp-era Liverpool prized counter-pressing as a major defensive weapon; under Slot their counter-press numbers have declined faster than the league average. Broader tactical shifts in the Premier League — teams bypassing high presses with long balls and low blocks — partly explain the trend, but they do not fully account for Liverpool’s sharper fall.
Personnel turnover and a loss of cohesion are significant contributors. Effective pressing requires collective understanding and timing, and Liverpool are rebuilding that chemistry after substantial changes. New signings such as Hugo Ekitike, Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz can contribute to presses but lack the ingrained tactical familiarity of the players they replaced. Many of the midfielders and forwards who started last season’s title run are recording fewer pressures and counter-presses than they did a year ago; Dominik Szoboszlai’s numbers have also been affected by occasional shifts to right-back.
Those statistical declines showed in the Etihad game. City’s opener, built from playing out near the corner flag, exposed Liverpool’s diminished ability to disrupt and recover possession. While Liverpool did benefit from turnovers in their 2-0 win over Aston Villa, commentators suggested that was more down to Villa’s errors than evidence that Liverpool had restored their press.
Tactically, there are options. Critics have urged Slot to be bolder when out of possession, moving away from keeping an additional player in the backline and towards more aggressive, coordinated pressing. Such a tweak could raise Liverpool’s out-of-possession threat. But the problem is not purely strategic: tackling, interceptions, distance covered, pressures and counter-presses all indicate a team that has temporarily lost some of the bite that defined recent Liverpool sides.
Fixing this will require a combination of tactical adjustments, improved physical output and time for the squad to rebuild collective understanding. As the team regains fitness and cohesion, those trends can be reversed — but for now Liverpool face legitimate questions about whether an erstwhile strength has become a vulnerability.