Promoted trio find goals hard to come by
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Liverpool approach the second game of their Champions League campaign away to Spartak Moscow tonight with manager Juergen Klopp under pressure to resolve their chronic defensive problems.
Liverpool ended a four-game winless run by winning 3-2 at Leicester City on Saturday, but they have conceded 10 goals in three consecutive Premier League away games for the first time in the competition’s 25-year history.
Klopp’s men have kept only two clean sheets in 10 matches and he admitted after last weekend’s 2-0 loss at Leicester in the League Cup that he was “really, really sick” of shipping soft goals.
Held to a 2-2 draw by Sevilla in their Champions League opener two weeks ago, Liverpool have failed to keep a clean sheet in 11 of their last 12 matches in the competition.
But for all their defensive woes, which are symbolised by recurrent failings at set-pieces, Klopp has been reluctant to admit that he has a major problem.
Asked about his team’s difficulties at the back prior to their most recent game at Leicester, he protested: “It sounds like we have no points and are completely the worst team in the league.”
If Klopp has been spared more trenchant criticism, it is because his team, when on song, are capable of playing attacking football of scintillating quality.
Liverpool crushed Arsenal 4-0 at the end of August and in Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino, Philippe Coutinho and new signing Mohamed Salah they possess some of the most talented forwards in the Premier League.
The suspicion is that as long as his team are scoring goals, Klopp will not lose too much sleep about what is happening in his own penalty area.
“If you would ask me: ‘Do you want your team perfect in defending set-pieces, but don’t know how to play football, or would you prefer the other way round?’ I still would take this (second) one,” he says.
Liverpool’s quest for greater defensive solidity has not been helped by the unpredictable form of goalkeeper Simon Mignolet or by Klopp’s own selection choices.
The 5-0 capitulation at Manchester City earlier this month came after he made the questionable choice to start Ragnar Klavan instead of usual first-choice centreback Dejan Lovren, who remained on the bench.
The Liverpool manager also regularly chops and changes his defence, notably rotating his fullbacks between games, which has made it impossible to achieve any kind of continuity.
Matters were not helped by Liverpool’s frustrating transfer window, during which they missed out on prime defensive target Virgil van Dijk.
With Liverpool having failed to prise the Dutch centreback from Southampton, former captain Phil Thompson believes it was a mistake to allow Mamadou Sakho to join Crystal Palace after the Frenchman fell out with Klopp.
“Sakho was our best defender,” Thompson told Sky Sports last week.
But while Liverpool’s attacking football will nourish hopes of a return to prominence at home and abroad, their defensive issues may prove a fatal flaw. –
Today: Spartak Moscow v Liverpool, Sevilla v Maribor, Manchester City v Shakhtar Donetsk, Napoli v Feyenoord, Besiktas v RB Leipzig, Monaco v Porto, APOEL Nicosia v Tottenham, Borussia Dortmund v Real Madrid.
Tomorrow: Qarabag v Roma, Sporting v Barcelona, Juventus v Olympiakos, Basel v Benfica, CSKA Moscow v Manchester United, Anderlecht v Celtic, PSG v Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid v Chelsea.
– The evidence of a weekend when promoted Newcastle United, Brighton and Hove Albion and Huddersfield Town found the net once between them is that the crucial matter of goalscoring may decide whether any of the trio avoid relegation this season.
Rarely in the Premier League era have all three promoted clubs avoided immediate relegation.
Fulham, Blackburn Rovers and Bolton Wanderers did it in 2001 and Queens Park Rangers, Norwich City and Swansea City survived 10 years later.
Almost 50%, however, straight back down.
For that reason, if no other, Brighton, Huddersfield and even last season’s second-tier champions Newcastle featured strongly among the teams tipped for an immediate return.
In the first few weeks, both Newcastle and Huddersfield reached unexpected heights of the top four, but they have begun dropping away since.
Brighton on the other hand started slowly before successive home wins, including Sunday’s 1-0 win over Newcastle, lifted them towards the middle of the table.
In the opening six games, Huddersfield and Brighton have hit five goals each, Newcastle six.
Sunday’s pair were prolific enough last season. Rafa Benitez’s Newcastle hit 85 in their 46 matches, 23 of them by striker Dwight Gayle.
Yet he has not scored this season and had already found the Premier League testing with former club Crystal Palace, for whom his record was roughly a goal every four appearances.
Aleksandar Mitrovic has an almost identical record and has already picked up a retrospective three-match ban for an elbowing incident missed by the referee.
So Benitez needs goals from his close-season signings Joselu from Stoke City and Christian Atsu (Chelsea), who have one each.
Brighton’s Tomer Hemed, the matchwinner on Sunday, could face a similar ban to Mitrovic if the Football Association decide his apparent stamp on Newcastle’s DeAndre Yedlin towards the end of the game was deliberate.
The club cannot afford to lose him, especially at a time when last season’s top scorer Glenn Murray, 34 this week, is injured.
They will be counting on Pascal Gross, the German signed from FC Ingolstadt, whose two goals in the 3-1 win over West Bromwich Albion included the club’s first at the top level since 1983.
Huddersfield also received an early repayment on a new signing, when Benin striker Steve Mounie scored twice in the opening game at Crystal Palace. – Reuters
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