Gary Neville has slammed the Liverpool defenders this evening for what he believes are simply not good enough performances.
The Reds were hammered this weekend by Wolves. A cluster of defensive errors compounded a miserable day at the office, and Jurgen Klopp was visibly annoyed at the end of the game.
However, Neville believes the Liverpool defenders need to take responsibility. And speaking on his Sky podcast, Neville labelled the four Liverpool defenders as shambolic.
“Defensively they were shambolic. Individually, collectively, easy to play against. Obviously it’s not going well for them up front either. Gakpo, Nunez, Salah haven’t quite hit it off yet. But the rest of the team’s in a bit of a mess, and they’re conceding really really poor goals,” Neville said.
“It’s probably the first time after a game where I’ve seen Jurgen Klopp apologise and almost just say ‘I’m sorry’. Nowhere near, like where do I start reaction. Look, they’re internationals in that back four. Nowhere near good enough, individually and collectively. There’s no excuse for that. There are other teams with injuries defensively who’ve coped better. I don’t know why they’ve gone to pieces like they have.”
Klopp went with the back four of Gomez, Trent, Robertson and Matip. It remains to be seen if he’ll opt for that quartet again.
TBR’s View: Liverpool defence showing how important Van Dijk has been
Jamie Carragher mentioned this over the weekend as he suggested certain Liverpool players had been getting a huge helping hand off Virgil van Dijk. And in fairness, he has a point.
Neville pointing out the Liverpool defence here is bang on. The world shambolic was used again and it’s the right descriptive at this moment in time.
Liverpool simply have to sort this defensive mess out. Van Dijk will help when he does return. But they need even more than that, and can’t simply rely on Van Dijk to sort it all out.