International breaks will never not be as boring as sin to those of us that don’t care a jot about the various national teams. I’m quite sure that there are plenty of you who will happily watch any kind of live football, irrespective of whether Liverpool players are involved or not. I do not fit into that category. In truth, I barely even engage with other Premier League matches that are played on the likes of a Saturday or Sunday, unless I’m in a situation whereby I have nothing more interesting to do with my time. Sometimes I will have something such as Super Sunday on in the background whilst I make some LEGO or do my tax return or something, but even that is pushing it. More often than not, my wife will want me to go somewhere or do something, or simply just watch a film together. I am really not bothered about missing a match that the Reds aren’t playing in, which means that I get a bit more leeway from my other half if there is a Liverpool match at any other time.
Is the international break over yet? 👀
— Marit (@maritstensby.bsky.social) 10 October 2025 at 18:25
Usually, if I know what has happened in an international match, then it is because I have found out against my will. I could have a good guess about which Liverpool players have gone away with their national teams, but I wouldn’t know for certain whether they’d been selected or not. I often use the international breaks as an enjoyable chance for some downtime away from the football, which tends to consume my every waking thought the rest of the time. My wife and I got married on the eighth of September, which has traditionally been in an international window, meaning that I can sign up for whatever anniversary shenanigans she wishes to get up to without fear that I might end up missing a game involving the Reds. I am less than impressed, therefore, that the plans seem to be to remove that particular international break from next year. Like I imagine Arne Slot has done, I’ve used this particular fortnight to reflect on Liverpool’s start to the season. What kind of start has it been?
Riding Our Luck
When the Reds departed for Selhurst Park having won seven out of seven matches in all competitions, there was a sense that things could only get better the longer the season wore on. It wasn’t exactly an outrageous opinion to have, when you bear in mind that Florian Wirtz had yet to register an assist and Alexander Isak wasn’t even close to full fitness. Few people seemed to be willing to acknowledge that Liverpool had ridden their luck more than once in those opening seven games. In fact, you could make a solid argument that if each of those games had ended in a draw, then the Reds wouldn’t have had a lot to complain about. The fact that we won all of them allowed everyone to simply turn a blind eye to how poor we’d been playing in periods, from the manager through to the supporters. As a result, when the wheels came off and we suffered three defeats in the space of a week, too many people were quick to enter panic stations rather than assess things sensibly.
Liverpool win with a goal from a low percentage screamer from distance: “Game could’ve gone either way, Liverpool were lucky”
Liverpool go down to a goal from a low percentage screamer from distance: “Liverpool have been awful here, they’re lucky not to be further behind”
— Saw-mon. (@bitginger.bsky.social) 4 October 2025 at 18:35
Liverpool were not the best team in the country when we had won seven out of seven, nor were we the crisis club when the final whistle went in the game against Chelsea. We had been a bit lucky in some games and a touch unlucky in others. Riding your luck and winning when not playing well are the hallmarks of title-winning teams, so being in that situation wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Where the problems lie is in the fact that too many people were ignoring the major problems that seemed to be in place from pre-season on through. Defensively, we have been at sixes and sevens every time an opposition team attacks us. That makes sense, of course, given how many changes there have been at the back, but it hasn’t made for comfortable viewing when up against tricky wingers or speedy forwards. There seems to be a lack of trust in place between the various players that make up the back line, which needs to change pronto if we’re to take anything from the season.
Too Early to Abandon All Hope
Whilst the picture I’ve painted above is a fairly gloomy one, I also think that it’s far too early in the campaign to be panicking and feeling as though the entire season is going to be a washout. Last year, the week in which we played Manchester City and Real Madrid on the back of one another appeared to be the making of this Liverpool team, with the good news being that we’ve got the chance to do it all over again in November. There is little doubt in my mind that Arne Slot is wracking his brain to fix the issues that we’ve seen over the past few weeks. The Dutchman is an exceptional manager, having spent his career working out problems and finding solutions to them. The game against Fulham last season, when Andy Robertson got sent off and Slot spent the rest of the match trying to work out how we could win it in spite of only having ten men, was my favourite of the campaign because it demonstrated just how good he is at his job, which he’ll be looking to prove when the players return to action.
Great to be back on the LFCTV Premier League Review Show having a look at Liverpool’s season so far.
Numbers and clips on the attack, defence, late goals, van Dijk, Salah, Gakpo and plenty more. #LFC
— Michael Reid (@michaelreid.bsky.social) 9 October 2025 at 17:33
In some ways, a game against Manchester United is the worst one to have when you’re not playing very well. In others, it might just be exactly what we need in order to get our season back on track. Ruben Amorim’s start to life at Old Trafford hasn’t exactly gone swimmingly so far, meaning that the Reds have the chance to put the knife in and twist it. The atmosphere against our old enemy should be rocking, whilst the Red Devils will have had as many players on international duty as we do, so hopefully any rustiness will impact both teams equally. If you want to prove that the three defeats in succession were just a blip, you won’t get a much bigger occasion to do so than a match against our friends from along the M62. Similarly, players like Isak and Wirtz can make themselves instant heroes by finding the back of the net in this one, which can act as a springboard for the run-up to Christmas. Get back to winning ways, keep the pressure on Arsenal, and forget the last couple of weeks ever happened.
