By David Rice

After an impressive offensive display to open the campaign against West Ham, the Reds have struggled to find the back of the net with a regularity that inspires the level of confidence in our attack we’ve become accustom to since Mo Salah, Bobby Firmino and Sadio Mane came together.

But following 270 minutes of clean sheet football, there’s fewer critiques and a higher level confidence in our defense than usual. Some will surely claim a certain amount of luck in those results, but in the end, the Reds are three wins from three to start the season, a fact that couldn’t be more well timed given the month they face ahead.

Things Heat Up in September

Saturday brings the Reds most significant challenge thus far as they travel to face Leicester City. The Foxes are off to a decent start themselves, knocking off a promising, newly promoted Wolves side despite Jamie Vardy being sent off with 25 minutes remaining, followed by a composed victory at Southampton over the weekend.

Trips to the King Power Stadium haven’t been all that fruitful of late, with Liverpool losing three out of the last five. In those games, they’ve struggled to break down Leicester’s well organized defenses. Add to that the fact that Liverpool haven’t won the first four matches of any season in the Premier League era, and you might have reason for concern.

However, if the first three results of the season have shown us anything, it’s this team’s newfound proclivity for being able to deconstruct a parked a bus and handle those counter attacks with a sense of calm that was lacking in season’s past.

It doesn’t stop there. Following the international break, the rest of September sees the Reds face a trip to Wembley to face Spurs, kickoff their Champions League campaign, before rounding out the month by facing Southampton at Anfield and Chelsea at Stamford Bridge with a League Cup match against none other than Chelsea at Anfield nestled in between.

To top it all off, they’ll begin October by playing host to City.

It’ll be a tough run of games, similar to this time a year ago. September was far from kind to the Reds in 2017, as a 5–0 beat down at the Etihad was followed by home draws against Sevilla in the Champions League and Burnley, with another away day at Leicester spelling the end of their League Cup campaign just as it started.

It was a stretch of games the team spent months trying to recover from as it would ultimately put them in a position where catching City and making themselves relevant in the title race was a bridge too far.

Granted, no one kept up with City last season whereas this year, the Cityzens have already dropped points. But the task ahead is nevertheless a daunting one for a Reds team that has yet to start it’s first choice captain or the center back pairing that led it to the Champions League final just a few months ago.

After a solid start to the season, this September has the potential to define the coming months, but fear not my friends, because despite the lack of goals there is as much reason as ever to have faith in these Reds.

Style in the Back, Style in the Front

We’ve not seen this level of calm along a Liverpool back line since Sami Hyypia occupied a spot in the center of it and John Arne Riise was pinging balls in behind opposing back lines.

In the first three matches, we’ve seen what this new look Liverpool defense can do and it is quite a sight to behold. Virgil Van Dijk could tackle the tracks off a tank without furrowing his brow. Joe Gomez has been steady while our full backs look like border collies chasing down stray sheep when their not bombing in crosses. Trent Alexander Arnold’s 40-yard half volley into the feet of Salah last week undoubtedly led to a spike in eggplant emoji usage around the Liverpool loving world, but it’s just a glimpse at what the kid can offer.

At 19, Alexander-Arnold holds more promise than any Liverpool academy product we’ve seen in recent history. It’s early days for the England international, but you can see a day coming where the sight of him standing over a dead ball fills opposing keepers with doubt and hesitation. He struck the crossbar again on Saturday from a dead ball and you get a sense that it isn’t if, but when he’ll find the back of the net with one.

On the opposite side, Andy Robertson makes Kenyan distance runners look out of shape. The guy can put in a tackle or cross with equal effect. He rarely over extends himself and when he does, he can be seen executing a stallion-esque sprint back to recover . He’s the perfect fit for Klopp’s system, the long awaited answer to the whole at left back that essentially existed since the departure of Fabio Aurelio.

To top it off, the new man between the sticks is proving to be Brazilian in every sense of the word. As Klopp said after Saturday, that might take a bit of getting used to, but having a keeper who can play with his feet has undeniable advantages. Allison is a modern keeper in every sense, as capable of pinging 35-yard passes within a centimeter of its target as he is getting down to deflect a header off the line, evidence you really do get what you pay for I suppose.

Allison Becker looks to be worth every penny after three games of clean sheet football having come up with a number of key saves and proving he can play with his feet.

Add it all up, and throw in a midfield trio full of grit, capable of grinding with the ugliest the Premier League has to offer, and what you have is a situation where games can be won and controlled with little more than a goal or two from just a handful of clear chances.

There will be exciting matches where our potent front three run through opponents like Indiana Jones in cave full of cobwebs. But following a season where that dynamic trio combined to score 91 goals, it’s to be expected that opposing defenses are reacting with stringent marking and tightly disciplined lines of defensive pressure on all three of them.

We all love the swashbuckling, goal heavy style of last season, but we have to be realistic and understand that to achieve the level of consistency Klopp has emphasized in preseason and that we all want, the ying to all that attacking yang is bound to be the ability to grind down a Crystal Palace on the road 2–0, or simply bite our lips and squeeze out a 1–0 at home when the goals aren’t raining down.

Much remains to be seen. How does the team react when they finally do concede a goal? Will we get goals from elsewhere, particularly our defense? Any title winning side has defenders who can score between 5 and 10 goals per season.

In many ways, it has been the perfect start to the season, reshaping our impressions of the team and inspiring a new found belief that our softest spots of recent years are just that much harder this time around. Looking ahead, I don’t suppose we’ll have to wait more than a month for the answers to the questions that remain.