Liverpool’s incredible downturn continued with a calamitous 4-1 home defeat against PSV Eindhoven in the UEFA Champions League, meaning they’ve now lost three games in a row whilst conceding 3+ goals.
Liverpool boss Arne Slot is coming under increasing scrutiny in the Liverpool dugout, so Virgil van Dijk’s moment of madness to handle an early PSV corner inside the area certainly wasn’t welcome.
Ivan Perisic assumed responsibility from 12 yards and coolly found the bottom corner to hand the Dutch side a surprise lead.
Liverpool failed to rally from behind in Saturday’s defeat against Nottingham Forest, but they were swiftly back on level terms here.
Cody Gakpo’s initial effort was saved by Matej Kovar, but only as far as Dominik Szoboszlai, who tapped into an empty net from 12 yards.
PSV thought they’d nosed themselves back in front just moments later through Yarek Gasiorowski, who fired home a rebound from inside the six-yard box, but an offside in the build-up quickly ended his celebrations.
Liverpool were on the front foot for most of the half, and came within an inch of taking the lead for the first time when Van Dijk’s header crashed back off the underside of the crossbar.
The Reds were certainly applying the pressure in the lead-up to the break, forcing Kovar into a fine one-handed save to deny Hugo Ekitike from firing Slot’s side into what would’ve been a deserved half-time lead.
As much as Liverpool perhaps felt they ought to have led, they found themselves behind a little over 10 minutes after the restart. The beauty of PSV’s second goal was in the assist, as Mauro Junior threaded an inch-perfect pass through for Guus Til, who made no mistake in firing past Giorgi Mamardashvili.
Liverpool’s cause wasn’t helped by an injury to Ekitike, forcing their hand into making an unwanted like-for-like change to introduce Alexander Isak. Incredibly, Liverpool’s situation went from bad to worse a little over 15 minutes from time.
An Ibrahima Konate mistake was pounced upon by Ricardo Pepi, and after his initial effort crashed back off the post, Couhaib Driouech was on hand to tap into an empty net.
Slot rolled the dice in the closing stages by taking Konate off for Chiesa, but it was always likely to be too little, too late, as they’d simply left themselves with too much work to do.
The pressure on Slot’s shoulders now weighs even heavier, and there’s no doubting that his position now comes under even greater scrutiny.
This will go down as one of the most famous nights in PSV’s European history, and they capped it off in stoppage time when Driouech added a fourth to prompt a mass exodus towards the Anfield exits.
