Man City have shown Arne Slot how he can fix unusual Liverpool problem

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Arne Slot is not the first Liverpool boss to find rebuilding a team and defending a trophy easy, but the manager he faced on Sunday shows there is a wayAs the dominant force in the modern Premier League era, Manchester City have for much of the past decade been the benchmark for Liverpool. Now the Reds must once again look down the other end of the M62 for inspiration.Dismal defeat at the Etihad on Sunday afternoon for the reigning Premier League champions confirmed suspicions Pep Guardiola's side are once again the team most likely to prevent Arsenal ending what would be a 22-year wait to win the title this season.Indeed, talk of a championship challenge was far from the mind of Arne Slot as he grapples with a run of form that has seen Liverpool now lose five of their last six Premier League games and seven of their last 10 matches in all competitions.READ MORE: Wayne Rooney makes major admission after controversial Liverpool comments over Virgil van DijkREAD MORE: Ibrahima Konate sent Real Madrid transfer message as Liverpool approach questionedEven when acknowledging all the long-established understandable caveats, Slot readily admits there can be no excusing the Reds slumping to eighth in the table, their lowest position since April 2023.Despite 26 points from their last 10 games that season, Liverpool missed out on Champions League qualification.

And while such fears this term are premature - only 11 games have played and the Reds stand just one point off the top four - there's little doubt targets and expectations are now having to be realigned.Defending a major trophy has proven beyond Liverpool for the past 41 years, a remarkable fact given they are English football's most decorated club. The last time came in 1984 when they won a third league title in a row.Since then, Manchester United have retained the championship six times, City four times and Chelsea once.

Arsenal (twice) and Chelsea (once) have gone back-to-back in the FA Cup while City have done so three times in the League Cup with Nottingham Forest and Manchester United managing it on a single occasion each.This season, of course, has been a somewhat unusual case, with Slot compelled to overhaul parts of his team in a manner normally befitting a team wanting to make the next step up rather than fortify from a position of strength.While some comparisons can be made to the extensive business his predecessor Jurgen Klopp undertook after this first season - Sadio Mane, Joel Matip and Gini Wijnaldum would become mainstays during a period of success - Klopp hadn't had the luxury of an initial window having joined partway through the 2015/16 campaign.Rebuilding a team isn't easy and rarely goes as initially intended. Which brings us back to the present day and Guardiola's City.This time last season, having won 10 and drawn four of their opening 14 games, City had suffered a fourth successive loss and were in the midst of a run of nine defeats in 12 games in all competitions, six in the Premier League.The realisation they needed to refresh their squad had come too late, and prompted a January transfer splurge - not all of which has worked out - and a further spend in the summer.While a number of results this season would suggest City still remain a work in progress, few would doubt they look more formidable than 12 months previous and appear a lot nearer the finished article than Liverpool at present.