Watching Liverpool chuck it all away is making me furious
THEY are the entertainers again. A ticket to Anfield this season has come with the guarantee of goals and a brand of football as good as anything we have seen in the last 27 years.
Watching Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool over the course of this campaign, I’ve found it impossible not to compare them with Roy Evans’s team of the mid-1990s or the one Brendan Rodgers took to within two points of the title in 2014.
Those two squads were the most flamboyant since Liverpool’s last championship success in 1990 but the ability of Klopp’s group to thrill and dazzle is on par. Unfortunately, though, the similarities do not end there and Wednesday’s disappointment against Bournemouth reinforced my opinion.
It is not often I leave a stadium now with the emotions I had as a player but after seeing Liverpool concede a late equaliser and squander two more points, I was furious. The failure to prevent cheap goals and an inability to protect leads will hurt this squad like it did those other two.
Evans was the first one to suffer because of that. It was 20 years ago this week they were beaten by Coventry 2-1, having led 1-0, a result which played a significant part in their missing out on the title. You could never trust that team defensively in a big game.
That was the same for Rodgers. He would most certainly have brought the title back had Liverpool not conceded 50 goals in 2013-14. During his three seasons on Merseyside, they shipped 141 goals in total and, 18 months in to his reign, Klopp has not been able to correct things.
WITH seven matches to go, Liverpool’s goals against column stands on 39. Most of those remaining fixtures are against sides in the bottom half but what worries me is the record they have in such matches — 27 of the 39 conceded have come against teams from 11th place down.
It’s is the third worst tally in the division, only Crystal Palace and Swansea have conceded more to sides in the bottom half of the table. And what infuriates most is that teams don’t even have to work hard to score. Bournemouth had two shots on target on Wednesday — both ended up in the net.
That was the sixth game Klopp has drawn 2-2 in the Premier League since he arrived. In each of those fixtures — West Brom, Newcastle, West Ham and Sunderland (twice) — they led but could not see the contest out.
This is when you want to see teams grind out results. Klopp said earlier this week he was prepared to see his team win ugly and, if necessary, change the style but reverting to three at the back against Bournemouth didn’t make them more solid. The equaliser came while that system was in use.
Why does it keep happening? The situation has gone full circle from the days when I was playing, as both Gerard Houllier and Rafa Benitez had to contend with criticism that their Liverpool teams were frustrating and pragmatic.
Yet none of that bothered me, as we got the job done and won trophies. Those jibes were also aimed at the great Liverpool teams of the 1970s and 1980s, with critics arguing they ‘ bored’ their way around Europe. Those involved with the success didn’t care.
‘If your centre halves play well,’ the late, great Ronnie Moran used to say, ‘then you’ve always got a chance.’
For the life of me, I’ll never understand why the teams that have the best defences get criticised. Shouldn’t clean sheets be a badge of honour for defenders and goalkeepers? I still take satisfaction from the numbers during Benitez’s six-year reign, we only conceded on average 30 goals per season.
A big issue for Klopp, though, is he can’t get his best defensive partnership on the pitch regularly. Neither Dejan Lovren nor Joel Matip are robust enough to cope with the rigours of English football as they have only played together as a unit 10 times from a possible 30 matches.
I’ve never blown my own trumpet over my ability but it took an awful lot to stop me getting on the pitch. I only missed nine Premier League games from a possible 228 between August 2004 and May 2010. Sami Hyypia, my partner, missed just 11 of his first 266 games between August 1999 and May 2006.
Such have been the issues that Matip and Lovren have suffered, however, Ragnar Klavan — who was brought in to be third choice — could end up playing more games than any other central defender when he should really have just been cover.
If Liverpool want to progress, Klopp must act in the summer. It’s been said to me he made a mistake letting Mamadou Sakho, who has been in good form for Crystal Palace, leave on loan but there is a world of difference playing well in that kind of team and starring for Liverpool.
Palace’s team is set up for Sakho to defend on the edge of his own area with protection all around. His shortcomings got exposed at Liverpool and he wasn’t good enough on the ball. He also wasn’t good enough around the camp in Klopp’s eyes, which would lead to problems if he wasn’t playing. That’s why he can’t — and won’t — be considered a solution.
But nobody should be kidded — solutions need to be found. Loris Karius and Simon Mignolet don’t give me any confidence and Mignolet created nervousness in the first minute against Bournemouth when he dribbled the ball out of his area.
The anxiety remained and six minutes later, Liverpool were behind. There is a lack of trust in the stadium for him.
Klopp, I believe, needs a new No 1 but he also needs to find an axis he can rely on in the middle of his defence, like the way Mats Hummels and Neven Subotic worked in tandem for him at Borussia Dortmund.
His title winners of 2011 and 2012 only conceded 47 goals over two seasons.
Liverpool, by contrast, might give that many away this year alone and that should have the alarms sounding. Klopp, who has already lost two finals, does not want to be remembered as a nearly manager, like Evans and Rodgers, but the warning signs could not be more stark.
If they keep going as they have been in these final eight matches, Liverpool will not get into the top four. More than ever, he needs his defence to give the club a chance.