The Athletic.

So Liverpool beat Rangers 2-0 in the Champions League on Tuesday, yet Yergan Klopside is still 11 points off the pace in the Premier League.

On Sunday they go to Arsenal, so from challenging on four fronts, are they now in an early scrap for the top four?

Joining me to examine Liverpool start to the new season, senior football writer Olly Kay

as well as our Liverpool reporter Andy Jones.

And Mark Chapman, this is the Athletic Football Podcast.

I think they're a little bit complacent in some ways about a squad that was growing old together

and was always going to need a bit of rejuvenation.

We have to kind of free and out-sides.

Most fans have sort of resigned to the fact that it's very unlikely they'd be mantled a title challenge.

I would say Salas seems to be a victim of lack of cohesion elsewhere in the team.

So we're recording this, obviously, the morning after Liverpool have beaten Rangers.

I wonder, Andy, just from a Liverpool fan's point of view to start with,

whether the most crucial thing about them beating Rangers last night was the fact that they scored first? I think it was important, definitely, because of how the

amounts of times they've been behind in games and it did sort of settle everyone in the ground,

basically, just to get ahead and sort of be not be playing from behind, which has been the big

problem, because there's only so many times you can play behind and play from behind and get. I managed to get yourself back in front. You could see the confidence. I think it helped that Trent probably was the one who scored as well, given the sort of the noise around him at the moment. You could see how much it meant to him, but also how much it meant to the rest of the team as well and the way they celebrated with him. And then you could build

from there, which is what has not been able to do so far this season and back in the last season.

And I started with that, Ollie, because I do wonder whether that frames so much of our

discussions about Liverpool on the field. The transfer business will come on to later,

but on the field because they're spending so many times having to chase games. And that changes

tactics, it changes mentality. And the stats, you know, because either the opening goal in nine of their last 11 in the Premier League,

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