Liverpool's lack of balance is creating entertaining chaos: How they've become the world's team to watch

Liverpool have relinquished 2-0 leads in chaos-filled matches to start the season, and things seem to get crazier as the matches go on

The sample size is small but two weeks into the season, it seems like Liverpool have settled into a pattern for their Premier League title defense – a distinctly chaotic one, to be specific. They exhibit every quality of a team that spent around $400 million this summer in transfer fees, dropping almost all of their funds on attack-minded players, no matter the consequence. The byproduct has been thoroughly entertaining, with the Reds taking a 2-0 lead in each of their opening matches, relinquishing it, and then scoring late to clinch the three points they seemed destined to collect a half hour earlier. Conventional wisdom, though, always kicks in at some point during this version of the Liverpool experience, forcing questions about whether or not the Reds are actually capable of a genuine title charge.

After watching Virgil van Dijk and Milos Kerkez succumb to a 10-man Newcastle United on Monday, the concerns are fair. The simple expectation on any team is to win games but that is especially true for a team like Liverpool, who have all the trademarks of a team that is basically obligated to succeed. Title-winning history? Check. Reigning league champions? Check. A bank balance that allowed them to spend hundreds of millions on flashy new signings, creating demand for instant gratification? Check. Each team of this ilk chooses their own stylistic specifications but the pattern of success is usually rooted in routine wins against inferior opponents with a few statement victories mixed in. A deviation from the norm is usually a sign of trouble and with Liverpool, those pain points are particularly easy to spot.

After a preseason in which they kept just one clean sheet and, combined with the FA Community Shield, a third successive week in which they conceded two goals, the Reds' defense is particularly vulnerable to an attack that poses any amount of danger. Veteran van Dijk may officially be post-peak after a few suspect moments to start the season, while Kerkez joins fellow new recruit Jeremie Frimpong as a wingback who is much more suited to the "wing" part of the job than the "back" aspect. With Frimpong injured for Monday's 3-2 win at Newcastle, manager Arne Slot selected midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai for the role and did not gain any defensive resolve from the selection. The circumstances almost entirely eliminate the possibility of standard victories for Liverpool, the squad imbalance so clear and obvious that it creates unnecessarily nervy matches that feel certain to cost them against better opposition.