Impossible to defend these worrying stats

BY

THE unwanted defensive stats keep piling up on the door mat for Liverpool like final demands.

They have now kept just three clean sheets in their last 19 games and none in their last nine matches.

Worse still, they have conceded the opening goal in four of their last five games at Anfield.

They have trailed in six of their last eight games and, although they battled back a fortnight ago to beat Brighton, they lost to Manchester United and Atalanta to cost them one and, most-probably, two hopes of silverware.

A Premier League title in Jurgen Klopp’s final season is also slipping away and Crystal

Palace’s first win at Anfield in seven years is a hammer blow.

Yes, Liverpool have taken a league-high 27 points from losing positions and scored 27 goals from the 76th minute onwards, but ultimately they are finding you cannot always come back.

Not even the return of Alisson after nearly two-and-ahalf months out with a hamstring injury could give them the defensively solidity they needed yesterday.

Palace, who arrived at

Anfield with the Premier League’s second lowest away goals tally of just 15, repeatedly sliced through them on the break and Eberechi Eze was left unmarked for his goal.

Liverpool’s frailty has spread like a virus through their backline, infecting everyone.

Even Virgil van Dijk, the defensive colossus, has looked vulnerable and Palace were only denied a second by Andy Robertson’s excellent goalline clearance when the Liverpool skipper slipped to let in Jeanphilippe Mateta.

Ibrahima Konate’s form has also dipped and the normally reliable French star has been shaky for Klopp (above).

Mateta really should have scored a second for Palace when he outmuscled Konate, only to be denied by Alisson at point-blank range.

It mattered not and Liverpool are suddenly hitting all the wrong notes in Klopp’s last dance.