Liverpool entered the 2025-26 season as favorites to win the Premier League. Not only did they win it the previous year, but Liverpool also spent 570 million dollars, the most money ever spent by a single club in one transfer window. Many pundits and football fans tipped Liverpool to break records because not only did they break the spending record in total, but they also broke the British transfer record on a single player twice, bringing in Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz. To say Liverpool are not on title-winning form would be an understatement. As of writing, Liverpool are sitting in 5th, ten points behind league leaders Arsenal. The reasons behind this decline are numerous, and the simple narratives used to explain it fail to capture the full nuance.
Arne Slot’s system last season set Liverpool up to maximize Mohammed Salah’s output through Trent Alexander-Arnold’s incredible passing. Trent left Liverpool to Real Madrid in the summer, and Salah is 34, on the decline, and is going to be missing for two months in early 2026 due to the African Cup of Nations. So, when Liverpool lost its two primary creative focal points, did the system successfully redistribute responsibility, or did the attacking output collapse toward the mean? The data suggests Liverpool did not replace its creative hubs structurally. Instead, attacking and midfield roles compressed, output flattened, and responsibility was unevenly absorbed by a small number of players.
This project draws on a combination of match-level, player-level, and contextual data to examine how Liverpool’s system has changed across the 2024–25 and 2025–26 Premier League seasons. The primary source for match-to-match and player statistics is FBref, which provides detailed Premier League data on minutes played, expected goals (xG), expected assists (xA), touches, progressive carries, final-third entries, key passes, defensive actions, and shots. FBref’s per-90 metrics allow for fair comparison across players with differing minutes, which is especially important given squad rotation, injuries, and new signings still being integrated into the team.
Defensive stability is assessed using a combination of pressures and tackles, which together reflect both the intensity of Liverpool’s defensive approach and its effectiveness. Declines in these measures can signal structural breakdowns in pressing or midfield protection rather than isolated defensive mistakes. By pairing defensive actions with attacking and creative metrics, the dataset enables a system-level evaluation of how Liverpool’s balance has changed across phases of play.
Watching Liverpool this season, the biggest on-field change is how much less aggressive the press has become under Arne Slot. That shift shows up clearly in the data. At the start of 2025, Liverpool’s dip in form lines up almost perfectly with a drop in pressing and defensive actions. When the team briefly finds form again, pressing intensity rises with it. The relationship is direct enough that it’s impossible to ignore. When Liverpool press aggressively, they control and win games.
What makes this more concerning is what happens after Liverpool win the league in April 2025. At the time, the sharp drop in form felt understandable. The season was effectively over, rotations increased, and the focus shifted to celebration. But the pressing data tells a different story. Even after results normalize and competitive matches resume, Liverpool’s press never returns to last season’s level. The decline isn’t temporary, it’s the new baseline.
This reframes Liverpool’s strong start to the 2025–26 season. Rather than representing a stable system under a new manager, the data suggests the team was overperforming relative to its underlying defensive intensity. As pressing continued to trend downward, the margins that sustained early results disappeared. Without that aggression, Liverpool struggled to regain control of matches, recover possession high up the pitch, and generate the same attacking momentum.
Last Season, Trent Alexander-Arnold was the focal point of Liverpool’s build-up, and losing him in the summer was always an issue Liverpool needed to fix. Liverpool signed Frimpong, who has been uncharacteristically injured since he signed, and Connor Bradley has also been in and out of the starting XI with injuries. This forced Curtis Jones and Dominik Szoboszlai to play at right back, which has worked somewhat to show Curtis Jones as a possible answer to the buildup question.
Losing Trent, has also had a knock-on effect on Liverpool’s attack. Salah who was the focal point of the team’s attack and had far and away the most touches last season, now doesn’t see as much of the ball and has drastically less output because of this. Wirtz looks as or even more involved than Salah, is also struggling to have significant output. The system lacks a center of gravity and because of that, at times, Liverpool’s attack looks toothless.
Looking at Salah’s numbers, it would be easy to frame this as a simple decline. His xG drops, his touches fall, and his overall output flattens compared to last season. But the visualization makes it clear that this isn’t just about aging or form. Salah’s role within the system has changed. He’s no longer the clear focal point everything runs through, and the data reflects that shift.
Rather than being isolated as a high-usage outlier, Salah’s involvement now sits much closer to the rest of the attacking group. This matters because Liverpool’s previous system was built around maximizing what he does best. When that structure fades without a clear replacement, his regression toward the mean becomes less of a failure and more of a symptom. The problem isn’t that Salah can’t carry the attack anymore, it’s that the system no longer elevates him above everyone else.
If Salah’s influence recedes, the natural expectation is that the players around him step up. Mac Allister is a good example of how that transition has played out. The data shows him taking on more responsibility across phases of play, but without a corresponding increase in effectiveness. His creative and defensive contributions both decline compared to last season, suggesting role inflation rather than role clarity.
Instead of excelling in a defined function, Mac Allister appears stretched thin, asked to contribute everywhere without anchoring any one part of the system. This reinforces the broader pattern emerging across the squad, that responsibility isn’t being redistributed cleanly. The supporting cast isn’t failing individually, but the system no longer puts them in positions where their strengths are consistently amplified.
The midfield is where the consequences of Liverpool’s structural shift become most visible. Across multiple metrics, most midfielders show declines in touches, defensive actions, and progressive involvement compared to last season. Rather than responsibility being shared or redistributed evenly, the overall trend points toward contraction. The system is asking less of the midfield as a collective, even as control of matches becomes harder to maintain.
Curtis Jones stands out as the exception. He is the only midfielder consistently increasing his progressive carries and key passes, stepping into the space left by the loss of Liverpool’s former creative hubs. But this isn’t evidence of a fully formed solution. Jones’s rise reads more like compensation than design. With limited minutes relative to others, his increased responsibility highlights a vacuum rather than a new equilibrium. The midfield isn’t evolving around him; it’s leaning on him.
