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Just a couple of weeks back, the Merseyside club appeared destined to claim back-to-back Premier League titles and possibly a further Champions League crown. Their capacity to secure victories despite not optimal performances seemed like the mark of true title-winners.

However, then the tide shifted. Liverpool continued with mediocre performances and began dropping points. Meanwhile, Arsenal, renowned for their resolute defense and strength in depth, started narrowing the gap at the summit.

Understanding a Slump in Today's Game

Can a trio of straight defeats constitute a crisis? As with many football debates, it hinges completely on your definition of the key word. Is Paul Scholes world class? How do you define "elite" actually mean? Is the Birmingham club a big team? What defines "big"? Are Manchester United back? Well, maybe that's one we can answer.

For a club of Liverpool's size and last season's excellence, a mini crisis appears a fair assessment. On a recent radio show, ex- forward Neil Mellor was asked how many defeats in a row would trigger alarm. His answer was six. At present, they are halfway to that point.

Identifying the Tactical Problems

There are clear footballing issues. Assimilating new signings like Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong, who provide a distinct skill set to departed key players Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold, presents a difficulty. Similarly, blending in a gifted playmaker like Florian Wirtz has reportedly unbalanced the engine room. Observers of the Bundesliga note that Wirtz is a technical talent who elevates those beside him, connecting play seamlessly rather than imposing himself upon the game.

Furthermore, a number of individuals who shone last season—including Mo Salah, Ibrahima Konaté, Alexis Mac Allister, and Conor Bradley—are now underperforming. In fact, the majority of the squad is. And they all share one significant, recent experience: the passing of their colleague and companion, Diogo Jota.

The Invisible Impact: Grief on the Pitch

We are now just over three months since the tragic passing of their friend. Although the outside world progresses quickly, shifting attention to other events, the club's squad continue going to work day after day without their friend.

This is impossible to gauge how each player and member of the backroom team is coping on any given day. It requires a significant amount of projection. Perhaps Salah didn't track back in a particular match simply he was tired. Or perhaps his performance level is down a few percentage points because he misses his friend.

The London club's head coach, Enzo Maresca, commented insightfully before a recent, drawing a comparison to his own experience of the loss of a fellow player, Antonio Puerta, when at Sevilla. "How they are performing this campaign is remarkable," he said of Liverpool. "Particularly after Jota's loss. I went through a very similar thing when I was a player two decades past."

"It is difficult for the players, it's not easy for the club, it's not easy for the manager when you arrive at the training complex and you find daily that spot vacant. So you have to be incredibly resilient. And this is the reason why for me they are doing not good, even better than good. Because they are trying to handle a situation that is not easy."

As summarized succinctly on a well-known supporter's show, the memory triggers are ongoing. They hear his song in the first half, they notice his unused peg in the dressing room. In the middle of matches, a pass might be played and the thought arises: 'Ah, Jota would have been there.' When the Egyptian showed emotion in front of the Kop a few games ago, it indicates that everything is far from normal.

The Limits of Football Analysis and Personal Grief

Having covering football for two decades, one comes to believe there is a inherent superficiality in most punditry. We genuinely cannot know how an individual is feeling at any given moment and how that impacts their play. Jota's passing is one of the most stark examples. We are aware a terrible event happened, and we understand the nature of grief. But further lies an intangible level of impact on different people at the organization. It is very possible that some of the squad personally don't fully understand its influence from one day to the next.

How the media reports on this and how fans analyze displays is obviously far from the primary thing. On a practical basis, mentioning Jota's death is difficult to do in a short soundbite before transitioning to tactical issues. Beyond this particular tragedy and beyond Liverpool, it would seem strange to preface every critique of a footballer with an admission that we are largely ignorant about their private circumstances—be it their parental situation, personal struggles, or relationship problems.

An ex- professional footballer, Nedum Onuoha, recently talked on radio about how his mother's death halfway through his playing days affected his passion for the game. "I didn't enjoy football as much," he said. "The high points and the lows that come with it no longer felt the same after that." And that was many years into his profession; for Liverpool and Jota, it has been just three months.

The Concluding Thought

Therefore, whatever Liverpool achieve this season—if it's something or if it's nothing—even if we don't mention it every time we discuss their matches, even if it isn't the reason for their final result, we must remember that a few weeks ago they lost not just a exceptional footballer, but, more importantly, they said goodbye to a dear friend.