In the shadow of a humiliating 3-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest – yes, Nottingham Forest – Liverpool Football Club finds itself staring down a barrel it never imagined. Mid-table mediocrity in the Premier League after six wins and six losses under new boss Arne Slot? Check. A defense leaking like a sieve? Double check. And now, Liverpool legend Graeme Souness has waded into the fray with a verdict so stark it could shatter the Kop’s fragile illusions: Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk, the twin pillars of Jurgen Klopp’s dynasty, are on the downslope. At 34 and 32 respectively, their decline isn’t just starting – it’s accelerating. And if Anfield doesn’t wake up, this season could end in catastrophe.

Picture this: It’s late November 2025, and the Reds are teetering on the edge of a full-blown identity crisis. Slot’s honeymoon period? Buried under a pile of dropped points and defensive howlers. That Forest thrashing wasn’t just a blip – it was a bloodbath. Alexander Isak, the £150 million British record signing who’s supposed to be the future, was hooked after 68 abject minutes for Federico Chiesa, a sub who’s looked as lost as a tourist in the Mersey Tunnel. Fans are baying for heads, and with good reason. Liverpool sit a precarious 8th in the league, nine points off the top four, their once-impenetrable fortress reduced to a revolving door for opposition goals.

But amid the rubble, it’s the Champions League offering faint glimmers of hope. Three wins and a single loss have the Reds perched comfortably in the upper echelons of Europe’s elite table, a stark contrast to their domestic doldrums. Next up: a tasty showdown with PSV Eindhoven, where Slot will need every ounce of that continental magic to paper over the Premier League cracks. Yet even there, the whispers are growing louder. How long can Liverpool punch above their weight in Europe while sleepwalking through Saturday afternoons?

Enter Graeme Souness, the grizzled ex-midfielder whose trophy cabinet gleams with three European Cups and whose tongue remains as sharp as ever. At 72, Souness hasn’t lost his edge – if anything, retirement has honed it into a scalpel. Speaking on his TalkSport podcast, he didn’t mince words about the duo at the heart of Liverpool’s woes: Salah and Van Dijk. “For the rest of the squad, they’re conceding goals that they don’t normally,” Souness growled, his Geordie burr laced with frustration. “Virgil van Dijk is now 34 and he made two mistakes in the Community Shield final – he was at fault for both goals just by being six inches too late. There is no doubt about it, at 34 the decline has started – he is still a wonderful player, but he will be on that slope and the same with Mohamed Salah – that worries me.”

Ouch. Salah, the Egyptian King who’s carried Liverpool on his back for seven seasons, is a shadow of his former self this term. Last year at this juncture, he’d already notched 11 goals and six assists, terrorizing defenses with that lethal blend of pace, precision, and sheer audacity. Fast forward to now: a measly four goals and two assists. Van Dijk? The colossus who once made strikers question their life choices is suddenly human – all too human. At 34, he’s been complicit in 24 goals conceded across all competitions, his positioning a tick off the pace that spells disaster in a league where margins are measured in millimeters.

Souness’s takedown isn’t just griping from a curmudgeonly ex-pro; it’s rooted in cold, hard reality. Remember the Community Shield? That Wembley dress rehearsal for the season where United ran riot? Van Dijk was caught flat-footed twice, his legendary reading of the game replaced by a split-second hesitation that gifted Bruno Fernandes and Alejandro Garnacho their moments. “Six inches too late,” Souness repeated, the phrase hanging like a guillotine. And Salah? The man who danced through defenses like they were standing still is now forcing shots, his end product as erratic as Slot’s tactics. Is it age? Fatigue from a grueling schedule? Or the subtle erosion of that Klopp magic that turned good players into immortals?

To understand the gravity, rewind a decade to another Liverpool low point: October 2015, when Brendan Rodgers’ Reds languished in 10th, eight points adrift of leaders Manchester City. Enter Jurgen Klopp, not with a whimper, but a secret summit in the Big Apple. In a rare moment of candor during a recent chat with Sky Sports, Klopp spilled the beans on how it all began. “The first meeting was in New York, that’s true,” he reminisced, a grin cracking his trademark intensity. “But the first phone call with Mike [Gordon, FSG president] was before that, three days before I don’t know. It was a nice day, I remember that. I think I was in bed still. I had nothing to do. I had time off. I knew that Mike, or someone, from FSG was going to call. I didn’t know Mike at that point. But we had one hour on the phone. I obviously convinced him in a way that he wanted to meet in New York to bring the deal over the line. Pretty much that’s how it started.”

That clandestine huddle wasn’t just a job interview; it was a lifeline. Klopp inherited a squad on its knees and forged it into champions, his gegenpressing revolution breathing fire into Anfield’s veins. Fast forward to today, and Slot – the cerebral Dutch tactician poached from Feyenoord – is facing echoes of that abyss. Nine points off the pace, with key men faltering? It’s Rodgers redux, minus the Scouse charm. Slot’s Reds have flashed brilliance – that 3-1 dismantling of Real Madrid in the Champions League still sends shivers – but consistency? It’s as elusive as a dry Merseyside summer.

The Salah-Van Dijk axis is the bleeding heart of it all. Salah’s contract ticks down to its final 18 months, whispers of Saudi riches growing louder by the week. Van Dijk, ever the captain’s armband-wearing rock, looks every bit the 34-year-old Souness describes: still towering, but with cracks spiderwebbing the foundation. Without them firing, Liverpool’s vaunted front line – Darwin Nunez’s chaos, Cody Gakpo’s silk – amounts to fireworks without a fuse. And in the background, FSG’s data-driven overlords crunch numbers, wondering if the time has come for a New York-style reset.

Souness, for all his bluntness, isn’t writing the obituary just yet. “He [Van Dijk] is still a wonderful player,” he conceded, before pivoting to the elephant in the room. “But he will be on that slope.” The same goes for Salah, whose wizardry has masked deeper squad frailties for years. Arne Slot knows it. The Kop knows it. Hell, even the seagulls circling Goodison Park know it. Liverpool aren’t just fighting for points – they’re fighting Father Time.

As the PSV cauldron awaits, Slot must summon Klopp’s ghost: that unyielding belief, that refusal to blink. Replicate the New York magic? Easier said than done. But if Salah rediscovers his spark and Van Dijk rediscovers his stride, Anfield could yet roar back to life. Ignore Souness at your peril – his warnings aren’t doomsaying; they’re a flare in the fog. Liverpool’s golden era isn’t over. But without a miracle (or two), it might just flicker out on a cold December night.

Will Slot pull off the heist of the season? Or will the slope Souness spies become a landslide? One thing’s certain: In the cauldron of the Premier League, six inches can separate salvation from oblivion. And right now, the Reds are teetering on the edge.