Updated 08:19, 10 May 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nVirgil van Dijk of Liverpool reacts after missing a chance during the Premier League match between Liverpool and Chelsea (Photo by Gaspafotos\/MB Media\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n
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It didn’t take a genius to foresee exactly what was going to happen. Indeed, it had been the talk in the press room the moment the Liverpool teamsheet dropped.<\/p>\n
“Just wait for the boos the moment Rio Ngumoha’s number goes up after 67 minutes,” was the general consensus that, sure enough, manifested itself in front of a riled Anfield.<\/p>\n
That it later emerged Ngumoha was suffering sufficiently from cramp that he was unable to continue perhaps put that ire into perspective, along with the inevitable growing pains of a 17-year-old making only his third Premier League start. There’s a reason his minutes have been closely managed this term.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Liverpool fans make feelings clear after controversial Arne Slot decision vs Chelsea<\/span><\/span>READ MORE: Ryan Gravenberch responds to Liverpool boos – ‘I don’t really think we deserved this’<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nThe upset reaction, though, was both encouraging and worrying from a Liverpool perspective. The positive was Ngumoha’s performance which, while at times understandably fitful, contained enough promise – including an assist for Ryan Gravenberch’s opener – to continue his progress.<\/p>\n
But that the youngster was Liverpool’s most lively attacker – and had the weight of expectation thrust upon him, albeit in well-natured fashion, by an expectant home crowd – highlighted, similar to Old Trafford the previous week, how the Reds were primarily toothless in attack until a surge during the final quarter of the game.<\/p>\n
Yes, the list of missing players was added to by Florian Wirtz’s absence. But that extra time on the training ground during the week simply isn’t paying any dividends.<\/p>\n
No defence for Liverpool<\/strong><\/p>\nThe failings all the way through this underwhelming Liverpool team have debated to the nth degree. And there’s another unwanted landmark on which Arne Slot’s side is now fast closing.<\/p>\n
Enzo Fernandez’s extremely avoidable equaliser was the 48th goal the Reds have conceded in the Premier League this season.<\/p>\n
Only twice before have they conceded more times in a single campaign in the competition, leaking exactly 50 in both the 2013\/14 and 2015\/16 campaigns.<\/p>\n
Defending, of course, isn’t just about the rearguard, and here Liverpool seemed paralysed at times when attempting to press from the front while the midfield too often stood off Chelsea during the first half and allowed them a way back into the game.<\/p>\n
This, though, isn’t a one-off in that regard, and the engine room missed the physicality of Dominik Szoboszlai in the deeper position in which he was notably employed in the three of four previous Premier League games Liverpool had won.<\/p>\n
At the heart of the defence, surely a little tiredness has also contributed. Virgil van Dijk started his 40th consecutive game for Liverpool in all competitions and, at 34 years and 305 days old, because the fourth-oldest outfield player to achieve this for the club.<\/p>\n
He and Ibrahima Konate have had to shoulder the burden for too long, and it appeared to catch up with the Frenchman who departed with cramp towards the end.<\/p>\n
Transfer need obvious<\/strong><\/p>\nGravenberch’s brilliantly-taken goal was completely out of keeping with both this dreary game and Liverpool’s season as a whole.<\/p>\n
It was only the fourth occasion the Reds had scored inside the opening 15 minutes of a league game this term with this the first time in 14 games in all competitions they had struck so early.<\/p>\n
That failing has been symptomatic of Liverpool’s tendency to start games gradually in an attempt to slowly impose some sort of control on proceedings.<\/p>\n
Successful last term, it simply hasn’t worked this time around, the reason as much about personnel as tactics.<\/p>\n
With Slot now regularly hinting at plans for the summer and knowing what needs to change, it would be a dereliction of duty not to have dynamism from every part of the team right at the top of Liverpool’s shopping list.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ian Doyle with the talking points from Liverpool’s Premier League clash at home to Chelsea…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}