Liverpool 0-0 Leeds: Anfield’s patience thins as Slot’s Liverpool draw another blank

Liverpool started 2026 with the sort of night that looks tidy on paper and feels hollow in the stomach. A first 0-0 of Arne Slot’s Anfield reign extended the unbeaten run, kept Liverpool fourth, and nudged them three points clear of Chelsea in fifth — but the boos at full-time were the most honest statistic of all.

Yes, Liverpool dominated the ball (68.3%). Yes, they posted 19 shots and an xG of 1.96. But the match itself told a harsher truth: it was possession without panic, pressure without punishment, and a crowd increasingly unconvinced by a team that seems to wait for goals rather than hunt them.

Key moments that shaped the game

14’ – Route one finally opens Leeds up
For once, Liverpool went direct. Konaté clipped a long ball over the top, Ekitike muscled past Bijol and wriggled into the area amid plenty of grappling. He cut back toward Wirtz, and only a superb Justin block stopped what felt like a certain goal. It was a rare moment of incision — and arguably Liverpool’s best attacking pattern of the night: quick, vertical, decisive.

31’ – Alisson’s near-disaster
Alisson tried a flashy pass out from his box that went straight to Ampadu, who briefly had the shape of a 35-yard finish into an open net. Alisson scrambled back and smothered, but the episode fed the sense of a team playing on a nervous edge — not chaotic, just strangely brittle.

33’ – The miss that will be replayed all month
This was the headline moment. Robertson’s delivery found Frimpong, who drove a left-footed cross-shot across the six-yard box. Ekitike arrived with the goal gaping — and somehow headed the ball away from where it needed to go. From a yard out. With the keeper stranded. You could feel the air leave the stadium.

61’ – Liverpool’s best spell… from a set-piece deflection
Szoboszlai finally injected some aggression with a hit from distance that Perri saved well. Then Ampadu handballed on the edge and Liverpool had the sort of free-kick moment that can rescue a flat performance. Wirtz took it — straight into the wall. Another opportunity dissolved without consequence.

69’ – Van Dijk’s free header
From a corner, Van Dijk found space on the penalty spot and headed wide. It wasn’t a sitter like Ekitike’s, but it was a huge chance: the kind of moment champions squeeze.

81’ – Leeds thought they’d won it
Farke’s late introduction of Dominic Calvert-Lewin nearly paid off instantly. He reacted to Okafor’s touch, lifted the finish over Alisson and for a split second the away end exploded. Offside — marginal, but enough. Liverpool escaped, Leeds sighed, and Anfield didn’t exactly exhale so much as groan.

Slot’s Liverpool are controlled, but too often that control is sterile. The ball moves. The shape holds. The pressing arrives in bursts. But there’s a growing sense that the team is playing to avoid mistakes rather than to force them from opponents.

That’s why Leeds were able to sit in, defend their box, and never really look overwhelmed despite Liverpool living in their half. For all the possession and the final-third entries, Lucas Perri made only the saves you’d expect a Premier League keeper to make. There weren’t many moments when Leeds looked panicked — and at Anfield, that’s damning.

There’s also a subtle psychological issue creeping in: once Liverpool don’t score early, the game can start to feel like a negotiation. The tempo drops, the crowd tightens, the passes become safer, and the risk shifts onto individual moments — a Szoboszlai hit, a Van Dijk header, a bounce in the box — rather than collective momentum.

And when those moments don’t land, you get this: “dominant” in every graphic, flat in every feeling.

Farke set Leeds up well, and they looked like a side with clear ideas and no inferiority complex. They’re now unbeaten in six and unbeaten against Liverpool this season after December’s 3-3 at Elland Road. Their three centre-backs handled crosses, their midfield screened intelligently, and they carried a genuine late threat once Calvert-Lewin arrived.

Liverpool, meanwhile, ended with frustration — and the sense that being “hard to beat” isn’t the same as being convincing.

There was a time when Anfield felt like a mosh pit — chaotic, loud, relentless. Under Klopp, games blurred into noise and motion, wave after wave until opponents cracked. This felt very different.

Slot’s Liverpool often resemble church choir football: neat lines, careful rhythm, technically correct but emotionally distant. The ball circulates politely, the tempo rarely spikes, and the crowd is left waiting for a crescendo that never comes. Against Leeds, it was all structure and very little soul — possession sung in harmony, but without the raw edge that once made Anfield suffocating.

It’s controlled, it’s tidy… and right now, it’s far too easy to sit through.