Even though Liverpool opened this Premier League season with five straight wins, the cracks in the defending champion's armor were clear for all to see. Sure, as a fan, it was fun to watch the Pool Boys pull off miracle after miracle, and in my most biased moments, I thought that magic could propel the side forward. But those cracks have only deepened since the start of the campaign, and now Liverpool is in full-blown crisis. Since beating Everton for its fifth-straight win domestically and then, nervously, dispatching second-division Southampton in the League Cup, Liverpool has lost five of its last six games across all competitions, its only win coming last week in a 5-1 Champions League thrashing of Frankfurt.

At the time, that big UCL win felt like a potential turning of the corner, but Saturday saw Liverpool lose its fourth-straight Prem match—the first time that's happened since its last title defense, back in February of 2021—dropping all three points to Brentford by way of a 3-2 scoreline.

Of Liverpool's recent losses, the Brentford defeat is the one that best highlights all the issues behind the side's struggles over the past month. Liverpool was torn apart in...