Liverpool quartet among ten Premier League players experiencing worrying slumps this season

It will come as no great surprise that after a week which has seen Liverpool cede the Premier League title to Arsenal despite retaining top spot before falling to a second defeat of the season to Galatasaray that there are four members of Arne Slot’s crisis squad included in this list of Premier League players experiencing concerning downturns in 2025/2026.

Whether after a summer move or having simply failed to maintain form for the same club, these guys are all a worry.

Ibrahima Konate (Liverpool)

“Who doesn’t cause Konate problems right now?” Jamie Carragher asked having watched another one of the centre-back’s Liverpool performances directed by Mel Brooks, featuring the Laurel and Hardy theme. It was Victor Osimhen on Tuesday, Jean-Philippe Mateta last weekend and Joao Pedro will be champing at the bit on Saturday, assuming Slot doesn’t remove the opportunity for further farce by taking him out of the firing line.

There are indeed rumours of a move to Real Madrid, and no progress on a new contract suggests he will move on a free transfer at the end of the season. But the way his head has been turned and seemingly removed entirely from his neck stands in stark contrast to Marc Guehi’s reaction to what was a transfer that actually very nearly happened.

“The sun goes up, the sun comes down, life goes on,” the wonderfully sanguine Guehi said. What Slot wouldn’t give to have him over Konate right now.

Benjamin Sesko (Manchester United)

Very difficult for any Manchester United player who was around last season to experience a slump in form that doesn’t leave them as a boneless mess of offal on the Old Trafford turf, though human entrails may have been a more useful plug for the midfield hole than Manuel Ugarte has proved to be this term.

Fortunately they spent £200m on a whole new forward line, and we could just as easily have plumped for either Matheus Cunha or Bryan Mbeumo here, who have scored a goal and claimed no assists in the Premier League in 846 minutes combined, but we must all at least concede that they are an improvement on whomever was operating in those inverted positions last season.

That’s not the case with Sesko, though. He’s got one goal, and needed three bites at that before he scored against Brentford, and is doing excellent work to realise the Manchester United fear that they have replaced one inexperienced striker who crumbled under the pressure with another.

Rasmus Hojlund starring for Napoli having escaped Old Trafford is one of a full 20 reasons United should sack Ruben Amorim.

Rodri (Manchester City)

“He is not injured but in the tendon he has a difficulty,” Guardiola said when asked about Rodri’s absence against Burnley, before claiming he was taken off after an hour against Monaco for tactical reasons. ACL injuries are famously difficult to return from and easing him back into action is the way to go.

But Nico Gonzalez replacing him on Wednesday before allowing Eric Dier a good sniff of his shin pad to concede a penalty in the dying moments, while simply a poor decision, will only add to the feeling that the £50m(?!) signing from Porto is not the Spain international’s long-term successor.

Rodri should be in his prime at 29, but City’s metronome has lacked rhythm this season, and the apparent search for another No.6, just eight months after Gonzalez was recruited, which has seen Carlos Baleba, Adam Wharton and Elliot Anderson linked with a move to the Etihad, in itself raises huge questions as to whether Guardiola and the City bosses ever expect Rodri to return to his Ballon d’Or best.

Milos Kerkez (Liverpool)

While we’re reticent to judge books by covers and refuse to sign up to the view that All Footballers Are Idiots, we can’t help but feel – entirely unfairly – after a start to his Liverpool career in which Kerkez doesn’t really look like he knows what he’s doing, that the 21-year-old may not be the fastest of learners.

He’s the only Liverpool player to appear in all nine of their games this season, starting seven of them, and having got two goals and six assists in the Premier League for Bournemouth last season, he’s not got a sausage for the Reds, while ducking out of headers and providing nothing like the left-side solidity in defence next to Virgil van Dijk that Liverpool reaped the rewards in eight seasons of Andy Robertson.

Morgan Rogers (Aston Villa)

We loved watching Rogers last season, the goals and assists, but mainly because he’s not your typical No.10. He’s not renowned for delicate touches, a small turning circle or for having his head on a swivel in those tight spaces between midfield and defence.

Of course, he can get on the half-turn and play defence-splitting passes, often as well as his namby-pamby counterparts in that position. But he also bullies his way through challenges, with his most memorable moments those in which he picks the ball up with no space in front of him and thinks ‘f*** it I’m just gonna run at the goal anyway’.

But he always looked like a player – and he reminds of us Dele Alli in this way – that would really suffer when things aren’t quite right. The first touch is now worse than imperfect and therefore often unrecoverable, and while we’re not sure how Martin Keown expects Ezri Konsa to “lead” Rogers to improve his retention of possession, we don’t blame him for seeking answers to Rogers’ dramatic drop-off this season.

He’s perhaps the strangest of the strange picks in Thomas Tuchel’s latest England squad.

Nikola Milenkovic (Nottingham Forest)

We all extolled the virtues of 20-goal Chris Wood, 11-assist Anthony Elanga, the creative excellence of Morgan Gibbs-White, the rise of Elliot Anderson and the eye-catching displays of fellow centre-back Murillo last term. But in our eyes – and we suspect in Nuno Espirito Santo’s – 2024/2025 was the season of Milenkovic.

And we can’t imagine a defender who quite clearly bloody loves defending has ever had a more enjoyable time than while playing under a manager who values that art at least as much as he does. We therefore wonder whether he’s had a less enjoyable time than he’s enduring right now under a manager who sees defending as the scourge of football and now faces the sack just three weeks into his reign with no wins and four defeats in six games.

Having been the lynchpin of a brilliantly solid Forest side for most of last season, Milenkovic now looks like the centre-back also-ran his £11m price tag always threatened he would be.

READ MORE: Big Weekend: Chelsea v Liverpool, Tottenham, Postecoglou, Haaland, Kane

Florian Wirtz (Liverpool)

In search of The Problem with league-leaders Liverpool, short of calling out scapegoat-in-chief Konate, most fingers of blame are currently pointing in Wirtz’s direction.

While fellow nine-figure summer signing Alexander Isak has so far avoided rebuke having not had the benefit of pre-season and starting just three games, much like Mikel Arteta manages Netflix FC, as we’re always waiting for the next Arsenal season for them to win anything, we’re at risk of giving up on a Wirtz series which promises plenty but is yet to feature an episode in which anything really happens.

Ollie Watkins (Aston Villa)

“What he has given us in recent seasons is nothing short of brilliant,” John McGinn said after Watkins broke his duck and Villa’s in their 3-1 win over Fulham last weekend, hoping the goal will “shut a few people up”.

“When he gets the ball you expect that he will score,” McGinn added. But we put it to the Villa captain that that’s rarely been what people have thought when Watkins gets the ball, and definitely not now.

He has the air of a man who’s been linked with a big move for two seasons and is coming to terms with the fact that that will now never happen for him. We’re apparently not among the few people to have shut up.

Ruben Dias (Manchester City)

It wasn’t all that long ago that Pep Guardiola had such centre-back riches that he had to play a couple of them at full-back, maybe one in midfield and leave at least one very fine one on the bench. It was sort of a toss-up then as to who would play in those central positions, but at that point because they were all excellent. Now it feels more as though they’re much of a mediocre muchness.

Dias has always been held up as the best – of a very good bunch and now a not-so-good bunch. Having rivalled Virgil van Dijk for at least a couple of seasons at the Premier League pinnacle, we’re now not convinced he would make a top ten.

Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)

Nine games into last season, Salah had six goals and five assists compared to three goals and three assists this term, but the eye test grants a far greater indication of his struggles. He looks nowhere near as vital, and we mean that both in terms of his energy and his importance to the team.

Slot claims the way in which opposition sides are now looking to play against Liverpool is having an effect on Salah, whom he does admit is “out of form”, but he must be wondering – as we all are – just how big an impact the departure of Trent Alexander-Arnold and the arrival of Florian Wirtz, and him favouring the other side of Liverpool’s attack, is having on the Egyptian.

These numbers are a concern.

MAILBOX: The ‘lazy and utter nonsense’ narrative on whether Salah and Van Dijk have ‘downed tools’…