Neil Humphreys: Liverpool risk missing out on top four
Liverpool's injury list and loss of form can no longer be ignored
Remove Ruben Dias and John Stones from the Manchester City line-up. Push Aymeric Laporte off the bench.
Replace Ederson between the posts. Lose Rodri as an anchor man. Drop Ilkay Guendogan and get rid of Phil Foden. Riyad Mahrez has to go, too.
Then cobble together a first XI without these eight players. Are City still sitting pretty at the top of the English Premier League?
Isn't there a possibility that the world's wealthiest club might struggle to make the top four with that injury list?
Welcome to Liverpool. This is Anfield, right now, staring down the barrel and facing the dispiriting prospect of going from champs to chumps in a single season.
From the beginnings of empire to the death of a dream in one surreal campaign of hurried fixtures and congested treatment rooms. And the downward journey could be completed within weeks.
Pep Guardiola's table-toppers are off to Anfield on Monday morning (Singapore time). Fixtures against Leicester City and Everton come soon after, with a trip to RB Leipzig sandwiched in the middle.
Lose against City and the title defence is done. Fail to recover against the Foxes and Toffees, and Champions League qualification may also fall by the wayside.
Hyperbole? Check the squad again. The Reds are blundering along with barely a quarter of their recognised line-up.
From back to front, Liverpool missed Alisson, Joel Matip, Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez, Fabinho, Naby Keita, Diogo Jota and Sadio Mane in their 1-0 home defeat by Brighton & Hove Albion yesterday morning (Singapore time).
Some of those names are more important than others to Juergen Klopp's cause, but the absence of all of them forces a realignment of expectations.
When the Reds lifted their first league title in 30 years, the prospect of a repeat performance in an uncertain campaign was hardly a foregone conclusion.
But no one ever considered an alternate reality where the champions were jostling for fourth with West Ham United.
HOME ADVANTAGE
Maybe the league table was always destined to resemble a surrealist painting in a year when home advantage vanished.
Without their 12th man, Liverpool have failed to score in a third consecutive league game for the first time since October 1984. Their last goal at Anfield arrived on Dec 27.
All clubs have lost home advantage, but only the most one-eyed Red Devil would deny the Anfield edge (even former Manchester United defender Gary Neville acknowledges the unrivalled hostility and pressure applied to visiting teams).
That's gone, stripping away the aura of invincibility that surrounded Liverpool's cauldron for three years and 68 undefeated league games.
Not that this is an apologist's note for the sudden decline. When the inevitable post-mortem begins, questions must be asked of a transfer policy that seemed overly cautious.
One of the few truly global sporting franchises might want to reflect upon the wisdom of delaying those centre-back signings, while sending Takumi Minamino out on loan.
Klopp's lack of options in central defence forced him to drag back veteran midfielders and utility men at the expense of a balanced line-up.
The absence of Mane, Jota, Fabinho and Keita, along with Jordan Henderson in defence, robbed Liverpool of any attacking urgency.
Against Brighton, Roberto Firmino and Xherdan Shaqiri were tired, isolated and anonymous, until they were substituted.
Had he stuck around, Minamino might have literally been better than nothing, which is what Klopp has left in his attacking reserves. Nothing.
According to reports, Jota is training again. Hopefully, the Portuguese forward will still have a reason to hurry back.
The Reds look shattered. Patched up and puffed out, those who are eligible for selection are running on empty and running out of time to recover.
There's no shame in coming second. Titles are rarely successfully retained.
But the Klopp era does not deserve the ignominy of falling out of the top four.
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