LONDON -- Oh for the halcyon era of eight days ago. Before Selhurst Park, Rams Park and Stamford Bridge, Liverpool had reasons to believe. They had not been playing to their collective level, but no matter. They had continually found ways to win. Maybe they could keep getting away with it?

Or perhaps when your games keep going into the 90th minute and beyond you might discover that there is nothing special about Slottage Time, that if the other team are still in it at the death they can swing a haymaker or two as well. And so the champions find themselves beaten for the third time in a row, all of them games in which those same issues from the winning run have reared their head. We are now nearly 20% of the way through the season and Liverpool look like a dramatically inferior version

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