It’s early days in the current Premier League season, but it’s still a shock that Liverpool are yet to win a game, and as a result, they’re closer to the relegation zone than the top 4 positions. Consequently, we have looked at three different reasons for their surprising struggles after playing so well last season.

1) The Spine of the team is old

After Liverpool got outplayed and deservedly lost 2-1 to Manchester United on Monday, football journalist, Zach Lowy, via his verified Twitter handle said:

“Pep Guardiola got a lot of criticism for selling a ton of veterans in his first year, but the fact is, he wouldn’t be starting Milner, Henderson and Firmino in 2022. Jürgen Klopp has worked miracles at Liverpool, but his loyalty to certain players is clearly holding them back.”

That is nothing but the truth. However, what he failed to also mention was that Liverpool’s spine of Alisson Becker, Virgil van Dijk, Thiago Alcantara and Mohamed Salah have the Brazilian goalkeeper as the only one below the age of 30.

That of course is not ideal for a team that relies heavily on pressing, as players lose the pace and stamina required for pressing as they age. Klopp can still squeeze out a few more years from the spine of his team, but to do that, he has to ensure the players around them has the legs to do the pressing effectively.

2) Injuries

It has to be said that most teams won’t have two points by now if they have the number of injuries Liverpool has had so far in this campaign. That may sound ridiculous given the season just started but it is true.

Heading into the match against Manchester United, Liverpool had up to 7 first-team players injured, including Thiago Alcantara and Joel Matip who are regulars in their starting 11. The situation got compounded after Uruguay striker, Darwin Nunez, got suspended for 3 games for headbutting Fulham’s Joachim Andersen.

No disrespect to the players on the Liverpool bench against Manchester United, but quite frankly, Fabinho was the only meaningful player on that bench. Fabio Carvalho is decent but that’s It. Fabinho was probably not fully fit otherwise he would have started.

No doubt it’s a situation that must have played a part in their poor start to the start of the season. Luckily, the transfer window is still open, and Klopp can still make one or two more additions to his team if he feels it is necessary.

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3) No Sadio Mane

The form of Liverpool will likely improve once most of their injured players return, but they would have coped better with the injuries if they still had Senegalese international Sadio Mane on their team.

Mane was not the main man in the attack for Liverpool but his strength on the ball and aggressiveness off it is currently being missed. With him gone, Liverpool no longer has an attacker that can’t be easily bullied by defenders.

The effect is what we are currently seeing now. When things are not going well on the pitch for the more skillful Salah and the pacey Luis Diaz, there is no one to get the job done through physical strength. That makes grinding out results when not playing well very difficult, which was what they did with ease in previous seasons.