Sunday 22 January 2017 11:33, UK
Liverpool's porous defence and a lack of championship-class players could see them miss out on the Premier League title this season, according to the Sunday Supplement panel.
Jurgen Klopp's side have won just one of their six matches in January - the FA Cup third-round replay against Sky Bet League Two Plymouth Argyle.
Saturday's 3-2 home defeat to relegation-threatened Swansea left them seven points behind leaders Chelsea having played a game more and while The Telegraph's chief sports writer Paul Hayward believes it is only a blip, he says there remains a lack of class in the Liverpool squad.
He told the Sunday Supplement: "If you play that style, the very high-energy style, you're probably going to have a dip at some point in the season.
"It's very hard for the players to maintain that intensity level, particularly when you don't have a squad of 20 players capable of playing at that level. They are light of championship-class players still.
"They are building a better squad, but they are not there yet, I don't think.
"They've drawn with Sunderland and Manchester United and lost at home to Swansea, which was a bad one. Swansea were hammered 4-0 by Arsenal at home last weekend and then they go to Anfield and win 3-2, so that's worrying.
"The thing is not to panic, to tighten up at the back and do something about the defensive porousness and try and keep faith.
"There's no reason they should fall away. They've got a lot of good players and when they get Sadio Mane back it will make a huge difference to them.
"They are having a dip, but it needn't be terminal."
The Daily Mail's football editor Ian Ladyman agrees that Liverpool's defence is the chief area of concern for Klopp.
Liverpool have conceded 27 goals in the Premier League this season - Chelsea have let in just 15 - and Ladyman argued that a title-winning team needs to be tight at the back.
"The single, over-riding problem with this Liverpool team is they concede too many goals," he said.
"They have got the eighth best defence in the Premier League at the moment. There are two teams in the bottom half of the Premier League table who've got a better defensive record than Liverpool.
"That can't happen if you are going to win the Premier league.
"People talk about Leicester winning the league last year and talk about Jamie Vardy's goals and Riyad Mahrez, but Leicester arguably won the league last year because they hardly conceded any goals from Christmas onwards.
"The 1-0 victories they ground out when they were not playing particularly well was what got them over the line and is what is holding Liverpool back at the moment."
