On Wednesday, Liverpool hoisted up the white flag and exited the League Cup with a 3-0 loss at the hands of Crystal Palace, abandoning what could be their best chance at silverware this season in favour
of focusing on a Premier League campaign on the precipice of crisis following four straight defeats.
While in the opening minutes opponents Crystal Palace seemed unprepared to deal with an unexpected 3-4-3 team shape, in the end the game felt about as lopsided as one would have expected looking at Liverpool’s entirely changed lineup. Despite sending out a group that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a U21 match, manager Arne Slot defended his selection following the defeat.
“It’s always a blow to lose, especially if it leads to going out of a competition, but it is the same selection I did tonight as last season in rounds like this,” the manager insisted. “There are many reasons, maybe, why we’ve lost six out of seven—but none of them are good enough to accept losing so many.
“I can come up with arguments or reasons, but none will be enough because at Liverpool losing six out of seven is always too much. If I look at Brentford, to use that as an example, two days after we played Frankfurt away I saw there a team maybe struggle with playing three games in seven days. It’s not an excuse to lose, but also not a complete surprise if I see some some players struggle.”
In short, Liverpool sent out a wholly changed eleven with a bench that included no senior starters to bring on if Plan A didn’t work out—which, against a fairly strong Palace side, it would have taken a miracle to—with an eye to upcoming league games against Aston Villa and Manchester City sandwiching a European date with Real Madrid.
Even at their best, that would be one of the most difficult weeks Liverpool—or any side—could face. Liverpool, clearly, are not at their best. And now they probably need at least two wins and a draw from those difficult next three games to avoid going from precipice of a crisis to full blown crisis mode.
If Liverpool had beaten Palace last night, that wouldn’t have changed. If Liverpool now get three positive results, that Palace defeat will be forgotten. If it’s not forgotten, well, it’s because the next three went poorly—and then it really wouldn’t have mattered anyway, at least on the club crisis front and no matter how bothersome throwing away maybe their best chance at silverware was.
Call it a tactical retreat, then. A tactical defeat. Though at the risk of going too far into metaphor, having to engage in that sort of thing it doesn’t often bode well for the war effort. Throwing in the towel on the League Cup because the next three games could be the coup de grâce for Liverpool’s season—and maybe even Slot’s tenure—just highlights that’s what the next three games could be.
It’s done now, though. The choice has been made. And with it we’re on to those next three games. Three games to will determine things, one imagines; to either mark the point where this Liverpool side and their manager belatedly find their feet this season or the point at which crisis fully overtakes them.
“In two days we play Villa,” Slot added. “I think at this moment in time, with only 15 or 16 players available and to add to that this club has always used this competition to use their academy players as well, it felt to me as the right decision and I haven’t changed my opinion about that after the result because our starters haven’t been able to win a lot from Palace as well.”
