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Liverpool's defensive struggles have been laid bare in recent weeks, with Virgil van Dijk attracting particular criticism after the Reds' draw with Sunderland, but it isn't the first time the club or their decorated centre-back have come in for criticism.

Arne Slot's side will be keen to get their season back on track against Leeds this weekend, and will want to avoid a repeat of the defensive frailty on show when the teams met in September 2020.

The match was the first of the 2020/21 season, and Liverpool's first outing of their title defence. They beat their newly promoted opponents 4-3, with Mohamed Salah bagging a hat-trick and Van Dijk also on target, but there were question marks defensively.

"You've got Liverpool's backline trying to push up, almost on the halfway line. That's not 'well it was one of those days' type of things, that is a huge, fundamental problem," former Liverpool defender Steve Nicol said at the time.

“I don't care how good you are as individuals, you have to defend as a group and they're not defending as a group I'm not talking about what's in front of the backline, I'm talking about the actual back four. Whatever the back four did, they did it together last year when they were successful. That's the key to it all.

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“What they're doing now is they are all over the place. It's an absolute shambles and it's huge. You get this wrong and you're going to lose goals for fun. When you start thinking about yourself and not the line, then you see what happened. Absolute and utter shambles.”

Van Dijk was called out for his part in Leeds' second goal of the game after his attempted clearance was intercepted by Patrick Bamford. However, the Reds' then-manager Jurgen Klopp played down criticism of his back line after the win.

“I didn't see us struggling defensively but the way they play you cannot defend 100 per cent of the time," Klopp said. "For the first goal both full-backs were deeper than the centre-halves and that should never happen in football. The second goal was a misunderstanding between Virgil and Ali (goalkeeper Alisson) and I don't think we will see these situations very often."

Things began to look even worse for Liverpool just three weeks later, when they suffered a 7-2 humbling away at Aston Villa. Van Dijk then suffered a cruciate ligament injury in the very next game against Everton, keeping him out for the remainder of the season.

The Dutch defender came back stronger, ultimately captaining the Reds to Premier League glory last season. He has found it tougher this term, though, and was questioned after turning his back on a Chemsdine Talbi strike on Wednesday and seeing the ball deflect in off his back.

"Virgil van Dijk last season couldn't make a mistake. Every game he was imperious, but right now he's making mistakes and second guessing himself," former Liverpool midfielder Jamie Redknapp said on Sky Sports.

"Virgil panics [for Sunderland's goal], backs off, show him too much respect and turns his back on it, which I don't like to see a centre-back do, and these are the mistakes that creep into Liverpool's game all the time."

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