LIVERPOOL BATTERED
Jurgen’s TV pop at Keane looks so daft now as Villa trounce Reds
NOW this was what you call sloppy, Roy.
A few other things as well. Remarkable, brilliant from Villa, truly bizarre.
But when Jurgen Klopp gave Roy Keane a live dressing-down for the mildest criticism less than a week ago, he could not have envisaged this.
He could not have envisaged one of the most slapdash performances a Liverpool team has produced during his entire tenure.
First of all, proper acclaim for Dean Smith’s Aston Villa – a team set up brilliantly by its manager, exposing and embarrassing Klopp’s high line.
Proper acclaim for Ollie Watkins for a hat-trick that was stamped with the hallmark of a natural scorer.
Proper acclaim for the absolutely sublime contribution of Jack Grealish, for the drive of Ross Barkley, for the energy of Scotland star John McGinn.
Acclaim all round for everyone at Villa Park, not least those above who have trusted Smith.
But this was a simply shocking display from a Liverpool, a team whose success has been built on their defensive foundation.
Klopp said: “Last week, Mr Keane said on TV we defended sloppy – tonight it was not sloppy, it was just bad.
“I have to admit that, I cannot change that now. I’d love a training session tomorrow.
“We put all our rubbish things in one game. Fine, we can start again. I cannot change that now. I am 53 and have saw everything in football but it doesn’t mean I have a solution for everything. Villa did really well but we did so bad.
“We can defend so much better than tonight.”
The conspiracy theory doing the pre-match rounds was that keeper Alisson’s shoulder injury was a ‘convenient’ one, ruling him out of pesky international duty. It did not take long for that nonsense to be debunked. There is no way Klopp risks Adrian in a Premier League match if Alisson is fit. The stand-in has an unhappy knack of passing to opponents, this time finding Grealish with a slide rule number and England’s newest midfielder was a model of composure in setting up Watkins for a tap-in that started the madness. It was the same combination that unstitched the champions for a second time midway through the first half, on this occasion without any assistance from an opponent. Grealish’s cute pass set Watkins up to slalom inside Joe Gomez and finish.
Mo Salah pulled one back but McGinn’s volley, via a Virgil van Dijk deflection, restored Villa’s two-goal lead then some dire set- piece defending let Watkins head in Trezeguet’s cross for his hat-trick.
Barkley made it 5- 1, Salah grabbed a second but then Grealish produced two great finishes to seal the win.
Ex-Celt Van Dijk said: “It is hard to lose in the way we lost tonight, first and foremost, you cannot take the credit away from Aston Villa.
“If we are looking at ourselves, you have to say that we were not 100 per cent at it from the start until the finish.
“The goals we conceded we should
have done better but also the chances we had, because we had many, we should have done better as well.
“We should not have lost like we did and now it is key we stick together.”
Villa treble hero Watkins beamed: “I think when the first one went in I pinched myself a bit because of how early it was.
“It’s unbelievable to score and get a hat-trick. After the first one I grew in confidence, but I probably should have scored more than three in the end.
“I’d back myself to score some of the chances that I missed.”
Watkins revealed how Villa ‘fancied themselves’ to turn over the champions.
He explained: “We saw how high they play and the game plan was to get in behind and you could see that it worked. We fancied ourselves today.”
Klopp added: “For different reasons
Aston Villa, who did really well tonight, forced all the mistakes that we made.
“We played into their hands with the first goal and with the second, and the third. Then the game has a specific direction.
“But we have conceded goals like this in the past, maybe not exactly like that, we obviously lost the plot.
“Our creating in the last third was good, it did not always get a goal but it was good. But when Villa got a chance our protection was below average.
“You could see it after the first half the body language dropped. But we are 4-1 down and how the game was, we should not stop playing. Just do the good stuff again but slightly better.”