Liverpool Can’t Keep Getting Away With This … Right?

Through five matches of the 2025-26 season—four in the Premier League, plus Wednesday's Champions League opener against Atlético Madrid—Liverpool has gotten out to and subsequently blown three 2-0 leads (lovers of the "most dangerous lead in soccer!" cliche are in heaven right now). The Reds have also struggled to score against Arsenal and Burnley, two well-drilled sides in defense. And yet, thanks to a fifth-straight late winner, Liverpool has had a perfect start to the season: five matches, five wins, five go-ahead goals scored in the 80th minute or later. What the hell are we supposed to take from this?

The first thing to note is that consistently jumping out to 2-0 leads is proof that something is working, and Wednesday's match was the prime example of what makes the side so dangerous. (A quick aside: I've been ill since the Defector five-year anniversary party last week, and so I am consuming a whole bunch of ginger tea to help speed up the healing process. I made a cup of said tea about five minutes before kick-off, and Liverpool went up 2-0 before the tea was cool enough to drink.)

First, in the fourth minute, a bit of good fortune: Off an early free kick, Mohamed Salah went for a far-post rugburner, only for the ball to deflect off Andy Robertson's leg and head toward the near post, which wrong-footed goalie Jan Oblak. There was no luck on the second goal, though, just two minutes later. Salah was again at the center of the move, playing a give-and-go with Ryan Gravenberch, who redirected a hard pass into a space just open enough for Salah to latch back onto it with three Atlético defenders surrounding him. The rest was straightforward, if not easy, for the Egyptian, who used his deadly left foot to bounce the ball past Oblak and into the far side of the goal:

Just like that, Liverpool had Anfield rocking and Atlético reeling in six little minutes. That's mostly how things remained for some time. It's not that there weren't danger signs, mostly in how much the visitors controlled the ball. Diego Simeone doesn't organize his side with possession-dominance in mind, especially against top opposition, but Liverpool seemed content to let the Spaniards push forward and spread their traditionally ironclad defense out, only to hit on the counter. So while Atlético had 56 percent of the possession between Salah's goal and just before halftime, Liverpool out-shot Atleti six to three. The newly acquired trio of Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz, and Jeremie Frimpong combined for the best chance in this period, a gorgeous link-up play between the first two that the third couldn't quite push into the net in the 42nd minute.

I think Liverpool would have been happy with the proceedings if not for what happened right before the half, and it was a familiar nemesis popping back up again. In the second minute of first-half stoppage time, Marcos Llorente received a ball from Giacomo Raspadori in the center of the box and was able to poke it with enough force, aided by a deflection, to squirt the ball into the corner of the goal. Suddenly, a comfortable 2-0 lead became a tight one-goal advantage:

With that scoreline, and Atlético knowing it could go back to its usual gameplan, the action reverted to the expected: Liverpool controlled the tempo, Atlético defended deep, and the goals dried up to start the second half. There were chances on both sides, but the game settled into a rhythm that looked like it would carry to the final whistle. That is, until Llorente, aka Anfield's Daddy (literally), popped up again. In the 81st minute, after a bit of passing around on the left wing, Pablo Barrios attempted to shoot on goal, which was blocked. The ball then fell to Llorente at the top of the box, whose shot deflected off of Alexis Mac Allister and took a wicked curve past Alisson in goal:

In another season, with another Liverpool team, this could have been a killer. Atlético thrives on biding its time and waiting for a moment of chaos to pounce, and Llorente's brace was the type of chaos that would have led me to believe a third goal from the visitors was coming. But this Liverpool side has proven time and time (and time and time) again that it can withstand any number of cracks without shattering. After earning a corner kick in the 92nd minute, Dominik Szoboszlai stepped up and hit an out-swinger from the flag, which initially looked to be sailing too far from goal to be dangerous. However, the ball found the one man who Liverpool has been able to count on for big header goals in the past, and Virgil van Dijk was there once more, somehow injecting enough power into a header from the penalty spot to one-hop the ball past everyone, including Oblak, and into the net. Liverpool had done it again:

Perhaps what's most impressive about these Liverpool winners this season is that they have all come from different players in different scenarios:

• Federico Chiesa hit an off-balance volley to beat Bournemouth:

• Teenager Rio Ngumoha hit a first-touch curler to beat Newcastle:

• Szoboszlai scored perhaps the goal of the season with an inch-perfect free kick to beat Arsenal:

• Salah capitalized on Hannibal's handball to score a late penalty winner against Burnley:

And then there was Van Dijk's towering header against Atlético. There's no pattern here for Liverpool's salvation, save for the constant lateness, and that makes the side extremely dangerous to play against. This is the guiding philosophy beyond the Pool Boys' squad construction. It might have seemed like overkill to purchase Isak, Wirtz, and Hugo Ekitike this summer, but there is now so much talent both in the starting XI and the bench that the goals can come from anyone, even someone who was lost in the shuffle last season (Chiesa) or a teenager seeing his first real minutes at the top level (Ngumoha).

All that said, I'd wager that manager Arne Slot is not thrilled with the flaws that have made these dramatics necessary. While Llorente is a long-time bogeyman for Liverpool, particularly at Anfield, the defensive lapses that have led to the blown two-goal leads are concerning with such a long and arduous season on the way. Van Dijk has been his usual imperial self on the backline, but Ibrahima Konaté has put together some stinker performances, and the revolving full back combinations of Jeremie Frimpong, Andy Robertson, Conor Bradley, Szoboszlai (as an emergency stopgap), and especially Milos Kerkez have struggled in defense.

Still, these are fixable issues, and would be more worrisome if only Liverpool didn't keep pulling off this same kind of magic in every game. This might go against logic and common sense, but it's hard to get too caught up in the process when the results have been flawless. I'm sure Liverpool doesn't expect or even want to keep winning games like this, giving up leads left and right only to be bailed out by star power and ice-cold blood. But the circumstances that have led to the heroics are ones the team can build on. The Reds are talented, able to score on almost anyone, and can find goals all over the pitch. How do you plan against that? If things were to stay like this it would probably come back to bite Liverpool in the ass, but for now, Arne Slot's wild ride has stayed on the tracks long enough for a dream start to the season.