Liverpool were beaten by Manchester City rather comfortably in the final game before the international break.
With Arsenal dropping points, this match was poised for the Reds to produce a big result and get their title defence back on track, but this was not even close to happening.
Man City were 2-0 up by half time and Liverpool were lucky the game was not out of sight by then, with their performance way off the level it needed to be.
Despite VAR controversially ruling out a goal, it is hard to argue against Man City deserving the win overall, with Arne Slot certainly learning a lot of things from this game.
Ibrahima Konate’s consistency is an issue
Ibrahima Konate has had a very up and down start to the season, with Reds fans never too sure which version of the Frenchman they will see.
Going up against Haaland is one of the, if not the toughest, things to do in world football right now, so he deserves at least a little bit of credit for the job he did.
However, he still struggled massively with the Norwegian targeting him, with the first half in particular, when his defensive frailties were shown.
Konate’s poor header for the opening goal gifted Haaland the chance, even if he did not know too much about it, while Man City often exploited the gap between Conor Bradley and himself.
He was caught out of position a few times and looked vulnerable to balls in behind, with this going to go down as another bad day at the office for the 26-year-old.
Liverpool could not handle Jeremy Doku
Whatever Jeremy Doku had for breakfast, it certainly worked as the Belgian was nothing short of sensational.
Although Bradley did not have a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, Doku was simply a cut above the rest and Liverpool could not handle him.
His pace and trickery caused many issues and despite doubling up on him on numerous occasions, he could not be stopped.
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There are not many like the winger in the world, so the Reds will not have to worry about facing similar players any time soon, although when they do, they look vulnerable, just like in this game.
Liverpool looked leggy
The Reds had a very slow start to the game and, in all honesty, were lucky not to be a few goals down early on, especially with Haaland missing the penalty.
They just looked like their legs had gone very soon into the game, perhaps due to Arne Slot naming an unchanged side from midweek, with Man City spotting and exploiting this.
Man City had so much time on the ball and were not being closed down, with this the reason they scored the first two goals of the game.
It certainly was not the typical Liverpool performance against City in such a big game, and all in all, they probably deserved to lose the game as they were, by far, the worse of the two teams throughout most of the game.
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