For much of the night, Liverpool were arguably the better side. On balance, Liverpool probably did at least deserve something more than the nothing they ended up with. A moment of madness from one centre
half and ten very poor minutes at the start of both halves, though, led to a pair of PSV goals. Add in a second moment of madness from the other centre half for a third PSV goal and nothing is what they get.
Liverpool Football Club are, not to put to fine a point on it, an mess, prone to falling apart completely for no discernible reason and undoing any good work they’ve done through the rest of the match. Even when they’re mostly playing well, there’s a feeling it could all go horribly wrong in the dumbest of ways at any given moment. And then it usually does. So. Let’s dig into it.
Dissecting the Narrative
If anyone was hoping for the Reds not to carry their catastrophic league form back into Europe, Van Dijk will have had them letting out massive exasperated sighs after he committed a just egregious handball five minutes in. The Liverpool captain seemed to think he was being fouled on a PSV corner—and he might have been, but it would have been very mild foul by fouling on a corner standards—and raised his arm as if in protest only for the ball to strike him flush. In the arm. That he’d just raised. If you didn’t see it, it was as absurd as it sounds.
The ensuing penalty was converted easily by Ivan Perišić as Giorgi Mamardashvili soared majestically to his right and the ball nestled snug and comfortable into the left side of his goal. Hell of a start. Just like that the Reds were 1-0 down at Anfield basically from the go. It felt like farce. Like parody. It felt like Liverpool in 2025-26.
Then, after working hard to level the score and looking the better side the rest of the way in the first half, the teams came out for the second and the Reds looked flat. Lethargic. Just utterly torpid. With PSV having loads of space to work with it felt as though a second for them was far likelier than a second for Liverpool, and that goal inevitably came ten minutes after the restart. At times it has felt this season as if it’s less about the opposition beating Liverpool than it is Liverpool beating themselves, repeatedly. That’s the narrative.
Winners and Losers
Virgil “Baby What is You Doin’” van Dijk
Usually we go winners first, losers second. But yeah, that handball was something truly special. If there’s a pantheon of dumb handball penalties, this one’s going to be a fast-tracked addition.
Ibrahima “Baby What is You Doin’” Konaté
Maybe Konaté took Van Dijk’s absurd penalty concession in the first half as a challenge when he managed to dodge an onrushing attacker like a matador baiting a bull with his muleta (that’s the cape thingy so you don’t have to look it up) and then pirouetting out of the way. It was art, in an absurd sort of way. One minute Konaté had closed down the onrushing attacker twenty yards outside Liverpool’s penalty area. Then, somehow, Konaté called on every ounce of agility and athleticism he has to entirely avoid touching both said attacker and the ball.
It took a few more touches before Couhaib Driouech slotted it past Mamardashvili to seal the result for PSV as Konaté strained and scrambled unsuccessfully to recover, but we could spend a lot of time arguing over which mistake by a Liverpool centre half here was more personally embarrassing.
Dominik “Captain in Waiting” Szoboszlai
On the flip side, after Van Dijk’s ludicrous error conceding an early penalty, who but Szoboszlai to pounce on a loose ball in the PSV penalty area and slam it home. As bad as this season has been, just imagine how much worse it would be without Liverpool’s tireless Hungarian regularly there to provide glimmers of hope.
Liverpool hadn’t started exceptionally, and the ridiculous early goal against felt like the sort of thing that might easily have broken them (that didn’t happen until PSV’s third). Instead, following Szoboszlai’s equalizer the Reds were given a fresh life and began to take the game to their Dutch opponents. Then in the second, it was Szoboszlai again looking to lead by example, doing his damnedest to try and drag a malfunctioning Liverpool side level.
Hugo “The £125M Striker Who Was Promised” Ekitike
A lot was made of the lack of service Alexander Isak received against Nottingham Forest on Saturday, but Liverpool’s record signing didn’t exactly make it easy to get the ball to him. He was closely marked by both Forest centre halves but rarely showed any movement or real effort to shake them—no dropping between the lines, no speculatively probing channels. He was marked closely and got no service. He made it too easy to be marked closely and as a result got no service.
On the other hand, Ekitike here was in constant motion. He ran to space, he dropped into gaps, he made runs. Even when they didn’t come off or weren’t spotted, he made PSV’s defenders work to stay close to him. Which created spaces for others at a minimum—and often led to him getting open and receiving the ball. Things didn’t always come off because things don’t come off more often than not for attackers in football, but he stood out for all the right reasons in a way that Isak has yet to manage at any point in his now three months at the club.
Oh. And Isak came on in the second half and didn’t do an awful lot. And then after Konaté‘s matador act PSV got their fourth in stoppage time to put a bow on it. So it goes.
Talking Tactics
Do the tactics even matter when, even when Liverpool are mostly playing well, there’s a feeling it could all go horribly wrong in the dumbest of ways at any given moment and the club’s two highly regarded centre halves are having a competition to see who can fuck up more embarrassingly? Do the tactics even matter when the side appear on a perpetual knife-edge, just waiting to fall apart at the slightest excuse?
What Happens Next
As unfortunate as tonight’s result was—and as embarrassing as the some of the individual moments that led to it were—the real test was always going to be in the league against West Ham on Sunday. It’s the league where the Reds’ struggles appear starkest, where they are a side that has slumped to 12th after 12 matchweeks.
So. West Ham on the road. Defending champions Liverpool having dropped into the bottom half of the table as we prepare to head into December. Liverpool very much in crisis. And no obvious answers in sight.
