Liverpool duo slammed 'terrible' as Alan Shearer calls out Arne Slot stars

Alan Shearer and Micah Richards have pinpointed the issues Liverpool head coach Arne Slot needs to tackle following their fourth consecutive Premier League defeat. The Reds' 3-2 loss to Brentford marked their fourth straight league defeat, leaving them in seventh place in the table.

Slot is facing the most significant challenge of his tenure at Anfield, with problems mounting. "Teams have a certain playing style against us, which is a very good strategy to play, and we haven't found an answer yet," admitted the Dutchman. "Going down 1-0 every time doesn't help either. Teams know which strategy to play against us.

"Even when we didn't play well today, we still scored twice from open play, but you can't compete up there (at the top of the table) because we simply concede too many goals."

In just nine matches, Liverpool have conceded 14 goals, prompting Shearer to comment on the podcast: "Where do we start? I mean, no one saw this coming.

"I think the vast majority of people, the vast majority of pundits - I can't remember any pundits that said Liverpool would have problems defensively.

"Like, all you remember people saying, because of the squad they've got, because of their investment and players they've signed, is that they were the team to beat.

"But they are so bad all over the pitch. I mean, say what you want about them in midfield and lack of protection up front, the lack of connection between their signings, but defensively, 'Oh my word.' I mean, [Virgil] van Dijk and [Ibrahima] Konate, the two fullbacks, have had a lot of stick and a lot of criticism, and I understand that.

"But the two centre halves, they are all over the place, they've been terrible and they were at Brentford. They were awful, both of them. I mean, Van Dijk and Konate."

Richards then addressed the team's current struggles, stating: "They were, and I think what we're seeing now is, Van Dijk needs help.

"How many times, in previous seasons, Van Dijk bailed them out? You look at partnerships and we've always talked about Van Dijk and how good he is, he needs Konate to bail him out at the moment and that's not happening so you have two centre halves not playing well at the same time.

"If you look at the tactical view, it's midfield. It's the midfield area, [Alexis] Mac Allister was protection for them, [Ryan] Gravenberch was protection and Dominik [Szoboszlai] has legs last season.

"Now it's completely different - they're trying to go with Curtis Jones, very good player but he's not got the defensive qualities over midfielders I've mentioned.

"[Florian] Wirtz as well. We know Wirtz will become a good player, we know that, they need to find somewhere in the team where he can excel.

"If you're a midfielder now and you're playing up against Wirtz, you're worried about what he can do on the ball but off the ball, he's small, he's petite, he's not very strong, he's come from a different league, you're going to expose that and that's what teams are doing now. It's energy in midfield why Liverpool weren't so consistent."

When questioned about long balls from their rivals, the ex-Manchester City defender added: "Last season when they went, when they pressed, they pressed together and they weren't exposed to that long ball.

"Slot's tweaked the way they played last season to this season. Last season, it didn't change too much, they were a team that were patient in build up, they were low block at times when they needed to be.

"They're trying now to press the ball a little bit higher, bypassing in midfield then the defenders are not reading it. The defenders should be doing better, but the goal for Konate, he's not normally in that position.

"Don't forget when Trent [Alexander-Arnold] was there, he would stop a lot of the counter-attacks because of his positioning, where they used to go from right-back into midfield.

"Now it's not happening, they've got to many players going forward at one time, leaving the defenders, agree they should do better, but they're not used to suddenly having to defend that one vs one at the back."

The Reds have also been targeted with long throw-ins and have been caught out on set pieces.

"I think the wider problem with Liverpool is more teams being able to play through them and if you look at their results from earlier this season, they've conceded so many chances," Richards explained.

"Chances that they wouldn't have conceded last season because of the way they're trying to play. They've added Wirtz to the team, tried to be more creative but that's stopped them from being a little more robust in the centre of the field which is now leaking onto to defence.

"I take your point of the throw ins, they must defend better and another key element. How many times did Alisson save them, when teams did go through, one on one, [Giorgi] Mamardashvili is a good goalkeeper but the communication between defence and the goalkeeper, at the moment, doesn't seem to be working. He's finding it hard to get that connection with the centre backs."