Jamie Carragher says Arne Slot has gone ‘too far’ in trying to fix one glaring Liverpool problem

Jamie Carragher has suggested that, in solving one glaring problem at Liverpool, Arne Slot has inadvertently created another.

For the first three months of the season, the Reds were leaking goals at an alarming rate, especially during a woeful sequence of nine defeats in 12 matches across all competitions, with 10 goals leaked in consecutive hammerings by Manchester City, Nottingham Forest and PSV Eindhoven in November.

LFC have conceded the same number across their subsequent 12 games, with defensive improvement underpinning that dozen-match unbeaten run, but now they’re facing criticism over the impotency in attack which, in Lewis Steele’s words, is making them ‘hard to watch‘.

Carragher: Slot has gone ‘too far’ in trying to redress the balance

While Carragher has acknowledged how Slot has made Liverpool harder to beat of late, he thinks the Dutchman may have gone ‘too far’ in simultaneously blunting the Reds’ attacking edge.

The ex-LFC defender said on Sky Sports: “The concerning thing over this run is Liverpool are playing with the handbrake on. I don’t think that was the case at the weekend [against Burnley].

“I think Liverpool played really well and sometimes you have to accept you don’t get the result that you really deserve, which Liverpool did. I don’t think this game in isolation reflects what we’ve seen over the last couple of months.

“The dilemma for every manager in every team in every league is balance between attack and defence. The balance wasn’t right at the start of the season. It felt too much in the attacking sense and Liverpool were leaving themselves open at the back, end-to-end games, lots of goals.

“Arne Slot has stopped that. He has stopped the defeats, but the balance has almost gone too far one way, where that energy and pace in the team isn’t there. The football is a bit pragmatic, if you like, but he’s done that to stop the end-to-end games, to try and make the team stronger defensively.

“If it was easy, every manager could do it. That’s the conundrum for everybody, getting the balance between attack and defence, and he hasn’t been able to get that right this season. It was too far one way at the start of the season; now it’s maybe too far the other way. Maybe Mo Salah will change it!”

Slot had the balance right in his early weeks at Liverpool

The curious thing is that Slot probably had the most ideal balance between defence and attack in his earliest weeks and months as Liverpool head coach, with most of those initial few games seeing the Reds exert greater control and giving away precious few chances.

It mightn’t have been as exhilarating as what we witnessed under Jurgen Klopp, and there weren’t many instances of us completely blowing teams away, but we were winning nearly every week with a degree of comfort.

By contrast, there’s only been six occasions this season when we’ve won by more than one goal, and four of those were by two-goal margins, including the opening night win at Bournemouth when it was 2-2 in the 88th minute, and the 2-0 victory at West Ham when we netted in stoppage time.

As Carragher would no doubt maintain, Slot needed to change something to make Liverpool less porous defensively, and there has certainly been improvement in that regard, but the fact that 50% of the current 12-match unbeaten run consists of draws is a problem.

Admittely the Reds haven’t been helped in an attacking sense by the absence of Salah on international duty and the long-term injury to Alexander Isak just as he was getting into a strong flow, but they should still be scoring more with the quality of players that they have.

Hopefully the Egyptian’s return in the coming days will inject a much-needed spark into our forward play, whilst not sacrificing any of the improved defensive solidity.

You can watch Slot’s full post-Burnley press conference below, via Empire of the Kop on YouTube:

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