Napoli Takes Liverpool’s Rocky Start to New Depths

Is this just a blip, or something more long-lasting? A heavy and deserved defeat in Italy forces a hobbled Liverpool to take a good look in the mirror.

After Chelsea’s defeat against Dinamo Zagreb on Tuesday, there came another chastening result for a Premier League side on Wednesday as Liverpool was hammered 4–1 away to Napoli. The Premier League’s net spend may have been 27 times greater than that of any other league this summer, but that is not guarantee of success, no security against embarrassment.

Liverpool has been nowhere near its best so far this season, but this was the worst performance so far. Perhaps it is the consequence of injuries and a hangover from last season, when it came so close to a quadruple, costing it a little of the sharpness so necessary to the hard-pressing style of play favored by Jürgen Klopp. Or perhaps the issue is longer-term, more deep-rooted. Liverpool, suddenly, is a side that is starting to look old. It was two of the senior players, James Milner and Virgil van Dijk, who conceded penalties in the opening 17 minutes, while Mohamed Salah and Fabinho both had anonymous nights. Joe Gomez, withdrawn at halftime, must have wished his night had been anonymous.

Napoli, by contrast, had the brightest young player on the pitch in the 21-year-old Georgian Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. It was his dart in from the left and square pass to Matteo Politano that led to the opening goal after five minutes as Milner, crouching with his arm weirdly extended, deflected the ball wide with his hand. Piotr Zieliński calmly converted the penalty to make this the 12th game in the last 16 in which Liverpool has conceded the first goal.

Milner is 36 and presumably wouldn’t be playing as regularly as he is were it not for the catalogue of injuries, a list that includes Jordan Henderson, Naby Keïta, Fábio Carvalho and Ibrahima Konaté. If he is showing his age, it is not great surprise. Far more worrying in the longer term is the form of van Dijk. Once apparently invulnerable— nobody dribbled past him in the league in 2020-21—he now looks vulnerable every time anybody runs at him. It was his foul on Aleksandar Mitrović that gave Fulham a penalty in the opening game of the season, and his clumsy challenge on Victor Osimhen that led to a second Napoli penalty 12 minutes after the first. He was temporarily spared, as Alisson saved Osimhen’s spot kick.

But there were problems everywhere. Osimhen had hit the post in the first minute. Gomez kept getting caught in possession, one of which led to Osinhen squaring for Kvaratskhelia, whose effort was cleared off the line by van Dijk. The second goal did, though, arrive just after the half hour. Kvaratskhelia, once again, was the source, robbing Gomez and cutting the ball back for André-Frank Zambo Anguissa, who played a one-two with Zieliński before finishing neatly as Gomez failed to track his run.

Napoli thrashes Liverpool in their opening group match in the UEFA Champions League :: Franco Romano/NurPhoto/Imago Images

And still that wasn’t the end of it. Anguissa slipped by Roberto Firmino and fed Kvaratskhelia, who went past Trent Alexander-Arnold far too easily then bundled by Gomez before crossing for Giovanni Simeone (on for the injured Osimhen) to score with his first touch. Napoli was brilliant, playing with pace and intensity to win possession and then attacking with great verve and intelligence. At the same time, though, Liverpool was dreadful, disorganized and oddly lethargic.

A Zieliński goal early in the second half headed off any thought of a comeback, although Luis Díaz, who is becoming a specialist in spectacular consolations, scored almost immediately. Napoli’s victory was comfortable enough.

The question for Liverpool is how this can be rectified. Is this just a blip, similar to that suffered in 2020-21—when, because of the pandemic, the season was compressed just as this season’s is because of the World Cup—or is it something longer term, more foundational? Transition is never easy to manage, and there was an awareness that Liverpool had grown old together. It is made harder by the frugality (relative to Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea and others) of Fenway Sports Group. That Liverpool has been able to keep up has been because its recruitment has been so good. But that is a fragile balance. The injuries and the apparent fatigue are perhaps a result of the relatively shallow squad.

This is Klopp’s eighth season at Anfield. His stints at Mainz and Borussia Dortmund lasted seven years. If he were feeling a little fatigue as well, it would hardly be a surprise. The real worry must be that with two games a week from now until the start of the World Cup, the international break aside, there is very little time to put this right—and any weariness is only going to get worse.

“It looks like we have to reinvent ourselves,” Klopp said after the match. “So it's a lot of things lacking, not in all games, but now the fun part is we have to do that in the middle of a Premier League season and Champions League campaign. In three days we play against Wolves. When they saw the game tonight, they cannot stop laughing probably and think, ‘Oh my god, it's a perfect moment.’  

“We have to try to find a setup to be much better in pretty much everything.”