Against Fulham on Sunday, the Reds suffered just their second league defeat of the season after Nottingham Forest's smash-and-grab at Anfield in September, and the manner of the win has certainly given the Dutchman some food for thought.
Fulham had won just one of their last 13 Premier League games against Liverpool (D3 L9) - 1-0 at Anfield in March 2021 - whilst the visitors went into the match unbeaten in their last six away league games against Fulham (W4 D2) since a 1-0 loss in December 2011 under Kenny Dalglish.
The Cottagers were also looking to win consecutive home matches in the English top-flight for the first time since March 2024, having won 2-0 against Spurs last time out at Craven Cottage.
Marco Silva will have been aware that Fulham had only picked up one point in their last 11 Premier League matches against teams starting the day top of the table (D1 L10), though coincidentally it was against Liverpool in this season’s reverse fixture, which ended in a 2-2 draw.
Liverpool fell apart before half-time at Fulham
Since losing 2-0 at Everton in April last year, Liverpool had gone 17 Premier League away games unbeaten (W10 D7), and had also won on each of their last three visits to London, beating Spurs, West Ham and Brentford.
However, despite taking the lead - Liverpool had avoided defeat in their last 48 matches when scoring first in the Premier League - the Reds completely fell apart before half-time.
Given that Liverpool held a record of W19, D1, L0 when scoring the opening goal in the Premier League this season, the way in which they collapsed would surely have been a huge disappointment to all concerned.
Ryan Sessegnon's equaliser was his third goal in the Premier League this season, which is a new career high in a single edition of the tournament for him, and it set a platform for the hosts to bombard their opponents over the next 15 minutes.
Alex Iwobi bagged his eighth goal this season, scoring for the first time since January 14th, against West Ham United, before assisting for his fifth goal of the current campaign, Rodrigo Muniz scoring his second goal in three Premier League appearances against Liverpool.
A third goal for the hosts had the supporters at Craven Cottage ecstatic and meant Liverpool had conceded three goals in a first half in which they'd scored the opening goal for the first time in the Premier League era.
The writing was already on the wall at that point as the Reds hadn't won a league match in which they'd been 2+ goals down at half-time since October 2008 at Manchester City (3-2), losing the 22 games since.
If Liverpool were looking for excuses, they only need to observe Fulham's work rate and penchant for getting their foot in throughout the game.
For example, Sasa Lukic certainly didn't show his opponents any respect, and his first-half booking was his 12th of the campaign - at least two more than any other player in the league.
Timothy Castagne was another who was happy to roll up his sleeves, and his six attempted tackles in the game were more than any other player on the pitch.
After no doubt being read the riot act by Arne Slot at half-time, Liverpool did at least have 67.7% possession over the opening 15 minutes of the second half.
Luis Diaz also scored his 10th goal in the Premier League this season, the first time he's achieved that feat and the first time he had scored since February 16th against Wolverhampton Wanderers. Briefly, the visitors were given some hope of getting back in the game but it wasn't to be.
Virgil van Dijk can still hold his head high
At least captain, Van Dijk, can still hold his head high. He had the most touches of any of his teammates on the day (95) and worked incredibly hard as his heat map shows.
In fact, although the vast majority of Liverpool players had more touches of the ball than their counterparts - Joachim Anderson's 62 was the most of any Fulham player whilst five of the visitors had significantly more - the Cottagers still took advantage of the Reds' disarray despite having just 37.9% possession in the game.
Winning only 39.3% of their duels and losing possession in midfield on 63 separate occasions was always going to have repurcussions for Slot's men too, and just four successful dribbles shows that Liverpool's front men weren't at the races on the day either.
Harvey Elliott did at least try and force the issue with three shots after coming on as a 55th-minute substitute for Dominik Szoboszlai, the most out of the entire Liverpool squad. His exquisite curling shot deserved better than cannoning back off the crossbar late on, though such was their luck on the day.
One other alarming statistic that's emerged from the match is that Liverpool had seven of their players taking at least three touches in the opposition box.
There can't have been too many games in the recent past where the Reds have got forward so well and still not been able to capitalise.
Ultimately, even without winning a point, they're still 11 ahead of Arsenal with seven games left to play, so unless there's a collapse like we've never seen before, this one will have to be put down as a bad day at the office.
