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After getting a win in mid-week, Liverpool now looked to put an end to their domestic losing streak with a trip to London to face Brentford.
Arne Slot made three changes to the side that thrashed Frankfurt, as Milos Kerkez, Conor Bradley and Mohamed Salah returned in place of Andy Robertson, Jeremie Frimpong and Alexander Isak.
Keith Andrews stuck with the same team that beat West Ham, seeing Jordan Henderson, Caoimhin Kelleher and Sepp van den Berg face their former club.
Once again Liverpool were behind before the match had even settled into any real patterns. Michael Kayode launched a long throw into the box as Brentford crowded the near post, seeing Kristoffer Ajer nod it on for Dango Ouatarra to finish.
Despite going behind so quickly, Liverpool did have a relatively good start to the game. Unlike most matches this season, they had passing options in the middle, as Dominik Szoboszlai and Curtis Jones hung around at the base of the midfield.
Brentford’s frontline attempted to block the passes into them, but the pair did a good job evading this. Jones would drop back between the centre-backs, allowing them to spread out, wide enough to play around the attackers.
The pair were also happy to pull out into these wide positions themselves, straying far enough from the centre that Brentford’s forwards didn’t want to follow them. This either gave them space to play forward, or it could be used to simply get the ball past Brentford’s frontline and back into the middle.
Brentford also showed a willingness to push forward and press despite taking the lead, so Liverpool had some success simply playing over the top of this.
As a result, Liverpool weren’t having a particularly difficult time progressing the ball, however they still weren’t having much luck actually breaking Brentford down either.
Liverpool could exchange short passes through the middle, drawing Brentford in, but they would then take so long to spread it wide that any benefit was lost.
This slow passing was also a problem out wide though. The ball would go out to the flanks, but rather than using the underlapping run, it would instead go backwards for another round of toothless possession.
Cody Gakpo’s refusal to pass Kerkez the ball has been noticed by pretty much everybody at this point, preferring to bring attacks to a screeching halt than make use of his teammate’s runs, although even when the Hungarian gets the ball in these positions, his crossing doesn’t appear to be good enough to really threaten.
Around the half hour mark things took a noticeable nosedive for the Reds. Their passing seemed to get sloppier, rewarding Brentford’s pressure, and this was worsened by how slow their attackers were to get back. There would be a turnover in midfield, seeing Liverpool’s attackers caught ahead of the ball, and Brentford would burst forward on the counter.
Even when Brentford were taking things slower though, there was often a simple lack of defensive effort from the forwards, which left Jones and Szoboszlai with far too much ground to cover.
Brentford would punish this just before half-time. Liverpool played passes through the middle, but a sloppy touch by Hugo Ekitiké gave the ball away. Brentford moved it on to Mikkel Damsgaard, who was in a position to be easily surrounded by Florian Wirtz and Jones, however neither man put him under much pressure, enabling him to take several touches and spray a pass in behind. Kevin Schade easily beat Ibrahima Konaté in a foot race as the Frenchman failed to adequately drop off, allowing the German to get through on goal and finish.
Liverpool would get a boost just before the break though. They exchanged passes down the right side, and a run by Mohamed Salah would pull Henderson away from Bradley, giving him space to receive the ball and fire a low cross into the box. Ekitiké missed the ball, but so did Van den Berg and Kayode, allowing Kerkez to finish at the back post.
Brentford’s superiority carried over into the second half though. Given space to play through Liverpool, it was only Giorgi Mamardashvili that was keeping the Reds in the game.
Even that didn’t last long though. Having won the ball back defending their box, Liverpool’s attempts to scramble away a counter were quickly smothered by the Brentford midfield, seeing the Bees go back on the attack, eventually winning a penalty. Igor Thiago converted it to put them 3-1 up.
This triggered a triple substitution by Slot. He had already switched back to Liverpool’s usual 4-2-3-1 at half-time, although in truth this changed little, as Salah had a tendency to drift wide and Wirtz into the middle in possession, so it just flipped where they popped up defensively.
Kerkez made way for Robertson and Bradley for Alexis Mac Allister, seeing Szoboszlai move to right-back. The third change saw Federico Chiesa replace Gakpo though. Rather than a like-for-like switch, Chiesa partnered Ekitiké up front, seeing Wirtz move left, essentially forming a 4-2-4. Slot would then make another change minutes later, bringing off Jones for Rio Ngumoha, seeing Wirtz drop back into the midfield two.
Having emptied the midfield, Liverpool’s attacks were now mostly long balls that Brentford dealt with easily.
When they did try to slow the play down a bit, it was aimless side to side passing with no penetration.
High pressure would see Liverpool pull one back, with Szoboszlai intercepting the ball and crossing to Salah, who expertly took it down with his left and finished with his right.
It wasn’t enough to steal anything from Brentford though, who deservedly left with all three points.
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