Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher said he’s “really angry with the players” following the team’s 4-1 defeat to PSV in the UEFA Champions League on Tuesday, a loss that extends their losing streak to three games and was their fifth in their last seven matches across all competitions.
In the Reds’ latest defeat, they were dominant with 63.1% possession and outshot PSV 27-9 but a look beneath the surface reveals a series of problems that have plagued the Premier League champions all season. The combination of their inefficient attack and their vulnerable defense meant they were essentially even on expected goals with the visitors, barely edging them out by a margin of 2.76 to 2.22. Liverpool’s imperfections only exacerbated things, leading to yet another lopsided loss in a string of them.
Pressure has begun to mount on manager Arne Slot, who has yet to find a solution to his problems but Carragher does not want to call time on his stint in charge of the team.
“LIverpool’s not a sacking club,” Carragher said during the UEFA Champions League Today post-match show. “Liverpool, I think, are different from almost every club in European football where the manager is the king. The managers get time. Liverpool have never sacked a manager who’s won the league. Never in the history. They all go after a few years. They’ve gone, they’ve resigned. I couldn’t believe at the weekend that people were talking about the manager’s job when I spoke to Liverpool supporters after losing at home to Nottingham Forest. It’s only going to amplify now and I’ve always been in the camp of you stick with the manager.”
Carragher believes the problem is bigger than the manager, Liverpool’s defeats the result of the club’s inability to evolve after Jurgen Klopp’s refresh of the team before they won the Champions League in 2019 and the Premier League the following season.
“I think what you see now is Liverpool in 2018 under Klopp starts this sort of journey of being a great team and then Slot comes in and we’re now, what are we, seven or eight years later?,” Carragher said. “The catalyst for Liverpool at the very start of that run was Alisson, [Virgil] van Dijk and [Mohamed] Salah. Alisson’s injured a lot, now he doesn’t play so much but you’re watching van Dijk now, not the same player and Mo Salah looks like his legs have gone.”
Carragher has felt criticism of Salah and Van Dijk this season has been harsh, shifting his focus to their teammates who have not stepped up as the veterans enter their post-peak years.
“I’m angry with the players, if I’m being totally honest. I’m really angry with the players,” Carragher said. “I’ve been critical of Mo Salah off the pitch. I want him to come out and do an interview tonight and speak to the Liverpool players about what the players are going to do, what’s going on in the dressing room, giving the supporters hope that things are going to improve but I don’t like criticizing them on the pitch because they’re absolute legendary, what they’ve done and the legs have just gone, especially with Salah. Van Dijk now can’t help other players. He needs help himself and that just means he’s a normal center back like I was at one stage. Maybe he’s not superhuman now but they’ve been that good for the football club. I look at some of the others – step up. Can you only play well when they play well? Their seasons last season were off the scale and everybody else enjoyed that, winning the league and they’re all league champions and they’ve got it on the CV and great but when they’re not there, where are they? Where are the others?”
Liverpool midfielder Curtis Jones took a similar tone in a post-match interview with broadcasters, regretting the fact that trips to Anfield feel approachable for opposing teams these days.
“This starts with just wanting to be a man out there and you’re just wanting to tackle someone and just be a dog out there and it’s not always the fact that we’ve got these lads who are nice on the ball and we just play and play and play,” Jones said. “Like, go and smash someone and it’s coming from me, as well. I’m not saying the other lads have to go out and do it because I’m the same. I’m in the exact same boat that the lads are looking at me as well say, ‘Go on, then. Smash someone,’ so it’s got to be on me and the rest of the lads to change this around, to not be so nice where teams are coming here thinking, ‘I’m going to win here. We’re going to score two, three, four goals.’ You come in here and this used to be a place that you hated to come, with the fans, with how we played and how we go and press and we’re just absolute dogs and then we have the ball and then we play whereas now, we hardly even play. There’s times when we play but off the ball stuff, I think that’s the stuff that has to change.”
Carragher took his argument one step further, though, making the case that Liverpool’s squad as a whole may not be equipped to challenge for titles on the regular – and may not have been last season, either.
“In terms of the players and the way they are performing now, that is not acceptable for Liverpool Football Club and I actually think – and maybe I thought this last season,” Carragher said. “Are some of them good enough for Liverpool if Liverpool want to win the biggest trophies? We saw them at Newcastle [United] in the Carabao Cup. We saw them against [Paris Saint-Germain] away from home last season. I mean, woeful performances and they’ve been carried by some of the greatest players the club have ever had. This is maybe a snapshot of the future of Liverpool when Mo Salah moves on, when Virgil van Dijk moves on and Alisson moves on.”
