If Jurgen Klopp still believes Liverpool's 3-0 loss at Brighton last month to be the worst performance of any of his teams during 1000-plus games of management, he might eventually come to file this one at Wolves alongside it.
The shortlist for that most dubious of accolades is growing by the week. For the second successive Premier League away game, Liverpool shipped three goals without reply and walked away having been thoroughly, deservedly humbled.
And if that reverse at the Amex Stadium on January 14 can at least be mitigated by the identity of a free-flowing Brighton in full bloom of perhaps their greatest-ever period as a top-level club, there were few disclaimers for Liverpool to cling to here at Molineux.
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Make no mistake now, this is the end for this once great team; the one who sailed too close to footballing immortality in late May have now disappeared over the edge.
Few would have predicted its end to have come here, in the heart of the Black Country, at the halfway point of a Premier League campaign. But there can be little doubt now that a squad that won every top level trophy in football between June 2019 and May 2022 has reached the end of its shelf life.
The glory days are gone, for now. The rebuild must be significant. It must be backed by massive investment. And, most crucially, it must be led by Klopp.
The German is suffering through his worst period as Liverpool manager just now but he is undoubtedly the right man to steer the ship from choppy waters, even if Wolves fans took great delight in singing about the Reds boss being given his marching orders after another 3-0 loss on the road.
Klopp can rebuild Liverpool but he simply must be afforded every possible luxury from those above him to be able to do that properly, whatever the ownership situation looks like by the summer. There can be no corner or cost-cutting and the manager will have to yield a ruthless side.
Before that can really begin, however, Liverpool fans will be forced to stomach a few lean months of domestic action. Out of both cups and 10th in the division at full time, quite where they will land at the end of the campaign is anyone's guess. It won't be in the top four, though; Liverpool's best hope of Champions League football next season is to win the competition itself for a seventh time. With frequent conquerors Real Madrid to come later this month, it already looks like a daunting task.
Wolves had the lead as early as the third minute when Hee-chan Hwang's cross was turned past Alisson Becker by the desperate Joel Matip courtesy of the back post as Liverpool were punished for yet another slow, sluggish start.
The hosts doubled their advantage when new signing Craig Dawson smashed home after more passive, reactionary defending from Klopp's men after just 12 minutes. The goal meant that Liverpool had conceded one more than the entirety of last season when they managed to ship just 26 across 38 games.
That particular statistic made the Reds the meanest defence in Europe's top five leagues, alongside Manchester City, but they currently look like one of the most porous. Teams aren't having to work hard to score past them.
All over the pitch, Liverpool were being outfought and the sight of Naby Keita demanding protection from referee Paul Tierney after one particularly firm challenge summed up the problems for the Reds, who were being bullied in every area of the pitch.
A yellow card for Dawson for poleaxing Darwin Nunez in the centre circle was followed by a smirk and a shrug of the shoulders from the Wolves defender and the fact that no-one in the Liverpool team even admonished him laid bare the lack of fire in the bellies of the visitors.
Mohamed Salah and Nunez had good chances to reduce the deficit as Liverpool started the second half with an intensity that was totally absent in the first. The Egyptian planted his effort wide before Nunez lashed one straight at Jose Sa after a sublime Trent Alexander-Arnold pass. In a week when the striker has spoken about needing to finish with more calmness in front of goal, it was baffling to see him wildly hammer it at the Wolves keeper.
Jordan Henderson replaced Keita before Harvey Elliott was introduced for Stefan Bajcetic, who once again understandably tired in midfield, but the changes failed to inspire a response before Julen Lopetgui's men wrapped things up. Substitute Adama Traore tore off down the right and kept his composure to square to Ruben Neves who had the simple task of finishing past Alisson.
"You're getting sacked in the morning!" came the chat from the home end at Klopp before cries for a fourth and then, most infuriatingly of all for the away end, the stoppage-time oles. It told the story entirely and as the final whistle sounded it didn't look like it was those in old gold who had started the day in the relegation zone.
The question now is how much worse does this get before it starts to improve? With a resurgent Everton to come at Anfield next week, we might just well find out.
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