LONDON -- The inquest began the moment the ball hit the back of the Liverpool net.
Kevin Schade had just scored to put Brentford 2-0 up against the champions and Virgil van Dijk turned to remonstrate with Cody Gakpo, who flailed his arms in response. Ibrahima Konaté looked down at the turf as he and his teammates trudged wearily back towards the centre circle.
For Liverpool -- who went on to lose the game 3-2 -- this is becoming an all too familiar routine.
The Reds have now lost four consecutive Premier League games for the first time since February 2021, when a series of defensive injuries led to a spectacular implosion of the club's title defence. This time around, the mitigating circumstances are not as clear cut, but the outcome is the same: Liverpool are in crisis.
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After Igor Thiago had converted a controversial second-half penalty to restore his team's two-goal advantage, the home supporters directed chants of: "You're getting sacked in the morning" towards Liverpool boss Arne Slot on the touchline. Their taunts may have been tongue-in-cheek -- Slot has credit in the bank from last season's title win and is presiding over a period of change after a truly seismic summer -- but it nonetheless served as a reminder of just how far his team have fallen.
If the midweek demolition of Eintracht Frankfurt in the Champions League offered Liverpool some respite from their domestic woes, Saturday night's trip to West London brought them back down to earth with an almighty bang. Should leaders Arsenal beat Crystal Palace at Emirates Stadium on Sunday afternoon, Liverpool will already find themselves seven points behind Mikel Arteta's side.
Of course, the season is still young, and bigger deficits have been overturned in title races past. But, at present, Liverpool look more like a team battling relegation than one capable of defending their crown.
The stage was quickly set for another bruising night for Slot's side when they fell behind inside five minutes thanks a superb volley from Dango Ouattara after yet another impressive long throw from Michael Kayode was flicked on by Kristoffer Ajer. It was the eighth Premier League goal Brentford have scored from a throw-in since the start of last season -- more than any other side -- and yet Liverpool looked unprepared. The Reds' frustration was compounded by glaring misses from Mohamed Salah and Florian Wirtz before Schade raced onto Mikkel Damsgaard's excellent defence-splitting pass to slot coolly past Giorgi Mamardashvili shortly before the break. An instinctive finish from Milos Kerkez deep into first-half stoppage time gave Liverpool a lifeline but the visitors were unable to build any real momentum and, by the time Thiago had added Brentford's third, they looked out of ideas.
That the penalty was only awarded via a VAR review which adjudged Van Dijk's challenge on Ouattara to have taken place the edge of the area is indicative of the current malaise Liverpool find themselves in. When it rains, it pours for Slot's side at the moment, and this most recent defeat has washed away any remaining dregs of positivity generated by their winning start to the season.
Liverpool have now lost as many league games this term as they did in the entirety of last season, with their previous four defeats having come across a run of 47 matches. Salah's thumping strike in the 89th minute offered a brief flicker of hope but ultimately the Reds were unable to pull off another late rescue act.
Out of all of Liverpool's players, it is Salah whose current slump is most emblematic of his team's wider struggles, with the forward currently miles short of his talismanic best. Having been dropped to the bench against Frankfurt in midweek, the Egypt international was restored to the starting line-up in the capital, becoming the first forward to start 50+ consecutive league games for the club since Ian Rush from February 1986 to May 1987 (56).
Salah's return to goalscoring form is perhaps one of the few positives that can be taken from this weekend's dismal reverse but, for the most part against Brentford, the 33-year-old looked like a shadow of the player that, at times last season, looked like he was single-handedly dragging Liverpool towards the title.
"I've said this many times already that teams have a certain playing style against us, which is a very good strategy to play, and we haven't found an answer yet," Slot said when asked to explain his team's dismal run of form. "It definitely also has to do with if you change quite a lot during the summer, then I think it's not a surprise that it can go a bit like this.
"But I didn't expect it to go with four losses in a row, that is clear. But it's always a bit of a bumpy road if you change things -- that is not so surprising."
Surprising or not, Liverpool's current run is at risk of derailing their entire season. Injuries are not helping the team's current plight -- Alexander Isak, Ryan Gravenberch, Jeremie Frimpong and Alisson Becker all missed the trip to Brentford -- but their problems extend beyond the absence of certain key personnel.
As the last remaining fans trickled out of the stadium on Saturday night, Kool and the Gang's "Celebration" blared out from the speakers, encouraging listeners to "celebrate good times." At present, the good times for Liverpool feel a very long way off.