The Match, The Stat: Fulham 2-2 Liverpool
There are too many different ways to feel pain this season.
Top Five Stats
Liverpool have won just once in their last six matches at Craven Cottage.
Florian Wirtz has two goals and an assist in his previous four starts.
After completing just two carries of at least five metres which ended with an assist in their first 17 league matches of 2025/26, Liverpool have three in their last three games.
Eight of Cody Gakpo’s 10 goal contributions this season have occurred on the road.
Harrison Reed added 0.72 xG to the chance from which he scored. It’s the seventh most for a league or European goal the Reds have conceded since the summer of 2017. He must have a foot like a traction engine.
Match Review
There must be no further misfortune left for Liverpool to suffer this season. That’s how it felt when Harrison Reed scored a sensational 97th minute equaliser. As poor as the Reds had been for much of the match, they had battled their way back well to earn what looked like a win. As if; if there is a way for them to be punished in 2025/26, it seems to inevitably happen.
Fulham were one of only three teams Liverpool failed to beat in their title-winning campaign. If they were a sticky opponent for that iteration of the Reds, it wasn’t going to be an easy Sunday afternoon for the current crop.
It was obviously also going to be a slog as soon it was revealed that Hugo Ekitike was missing the match. He had scored or assisted six of Liverpool’s previous nine goals so it was very hard to see where one was going to appear from in his absence.
Cody Gakpo, perhaps? In a largely uneventful first half, he and former Red Harry Wilson each had a broadly similar opportunity to score. Gakpo missed, Wilson didn’t, 1-0 Fulham.
In a team shorn of Ekitike, Alexander Isak and Mohamed Salah, to play in pedestrian fashion in the first half away from home wasn’t a foolish strategy at first. What grates is that there was so little response once the Reds went behind in the 17th minute.
It took another 22 minutes for a Liverpool player to try to dribble past an opponent, with Dominik Szoboszlai unsuccessful when he was the man in question. The three first half corners sent into the box failed to find a teammate too. If you’re not going to carry the ball to unsettle the opposition while offering next to no threat via set pieces, how are you going to score against a well-set defence?
When Alexis Mac Allister’s header crashed against the bar early in the second half, it looked like a corner might actually offer the answer. Instead it was Conor Bradley who solved the riddle by running with the ball from near half way to the edge of the box before playing in Florian Wirtz. See what happens when you actually run at a defence, Reds? More please.
Liverpool suddenly had a little momentum. After 69 minutes, the shot count was 9-3 in their favour, which looks decent when on the road against a side with 10 points from their last four matches.
Fans rightly question what a typical Reds goal looks like these days, as it’s hard to see patterns in their play or structure to their attacks. Arne Slot would probably like it to be something like the sequence for their second today: a 22-pass move involving nine Liverpool players that ends with a cross to the back post.
Whatever flaws exist in Gakpo’s game, he is Liverpool’s top player for creating Opta-defined big chances this season, plus only Ekitike has a better rate for goals and assists per 90 minutes. He has a happy knack of being in the right place at the right time, a.k.a. the back post.
That should’ve been that, but it wasn’t. For Liverpool to have come from behind to win a league game for the first time in 2025/26 would’ve been huge for the confidence of this battered side. Life had other ideas.
Slot will need better ideas than what he showed today when the Reds travel to Arsenal on Thursday. Reed’s goal mustn’t be allowed to fully snuff out the positives they can take from today. A little more conviction wouldn’t go amiss though, especially in first halves. The Gunners are unlikely to be so forgiving.
Source for graphics: Fotmob, Opta Analyst.
"See what happens when you actually run at a defence, Reds? More please." ☺️
On the plus side, two of our forwards scored a goal, both assisted by fullbacks.