Ekitic also suffered from a goal drought. What is the problem for the Liverpool striker?

Liverpool has been plagued with problems in the past few weeks, and Ekitic's decline in form has not attracted enough attention. The 23-year-old striker has soared like a rocket in his early stages after joining from Eintracht Frankfurt for £69 million. He scored three goals and provided one assist in his first five Premier League games, and also scored against Crystal Palace in the Community Shield.

Ekitic took over the scoring load while Isaac was injured - and looked like a perfect fit in Slaughter's system from the start. But things have taken a turn for the worse for the former Paris Saint-Germain man in recent weeks.

In the last 10 games for club and national team, he only scored one goal. Admittedly, it was a brilliant counter-attack goal in the Champions League against a thinly defended Eintracht Frankfurt.

Ekitic has also encountered a goal drought.

But in other games, Ekitic has also struggled with shooting - so far this season in the Premier League, he has only had four shots on target. Worse, he was completely stuck in the trap of under-engagement.

In last Sunday's game against Manchester City, since Isaac has not fully recovered, Ekitic was once again selected as the forward arrow. In 56 minutes of playing time, he only touched the ball 11 times.

So, what exactly is the problem?

Of course, it's impossible to single out any one player as Liverpool's only problem. The Red Army is currently dysfunctional - its previous two victories against Aston Villa and Real Madrid were only temporarily relieved by a return to basics.

The key thing is that those two victories were achieved at home, and the opponent's tactical play fell into Slott's routine. Any notion that Liverpool were "back on track" after those two consecutive wins can now be thrown out the window.

Liverpool's forward misses Trent Alexander-Arnold and Dias

Ekitic's decline in form began with the red card he received in the League Cup against Southampton. He has not scored in domestic competition since then.

We know that Slaughter was dissatisfied with the red card, but it obviously doesn't make sense to say that Ekitic's sharp decline was just because of the red card.

Red cards aside, his initial performance wasn't bad enough to force Slaughter to drop Isaac as soon as he returned. As the Swedish forward was injured again, the Dutch tactician had to use Ekitic as the main striker again.

So, what are the possible reasons?

On the one hand, Liverpool are feeling the impact of losing several players that Ekitic never even played alongside. Without Alexander-Arnold, they can no longer deliver the ball through the midfield area to the forwards in the blink of an eye.

With the loss of Luis Dias on the left, they also lost a key one-on-one opportunity creation ability, which the center could benefit from.

Ekitic is a symptom, not a cause

Wiltz, who replaced Dias at No. 7, is more of a "ball-at-foot" player and has recently been deployed on the left side of the offense.

This in turn caused problems for Ekitic in front, because he likes to drop back to receive the ball, often occupying the same space as his teammate who is also from the Bundesliga.

Furthermore, it has become clear that Szoboszlai must serve as a central playmaker - both for his work on and off the ball.

However, this meant that Richard Hughes's plan to use Wirtz to crack the "intensive defense" fell into chaos. The so-called "Wilz-Ekitic" connection is no longer possible.

After the scoring spree at the beginning of the season, Ekitic is currently experiencing a goal drought in five consecutive league games.

His various statistics are very low: FOTMOB data shows that he has only 0.57 shots per 90 minutes, only 32 touches of the ball per 90 minutes, and the number of touches in the opponent's penalty area per 90 minutes is an astonishingly low 3.81 times.

There are so many areas where Liverpool need to improve to make this team run like a well-oiled machine. For now, Ekitic's poor form is more of a symptom than a cause.