He speaks a lot of sense.
It was another immensely frustrating night for Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool, as the Reds squandered a two-goal lead during their thrilling 3-3 draw with Arsenal.
After the game, Gary Neville was in particularly scathing form on Sky Sports. The former Manchester United defender launching a withering assessment of Liverpool’s defence, during which he advised Klopp to get rid of the deadwood in his squad, using Pep Guardiola’s fine transfer business at Manchester City as a contrasting example.
The main reason Liverpool are a joke at defence. pic.twitter.com/XwtRRoEcg2
— Ben (@BenJoe777) December 23, 2017
“Get rid of the players. You look at what Pep Guardiola did last season. He brought Claudio Bravo in for big money. He wasn’t good enough and couldn’t adapt to the Premier League. He got rid of him.
“Ederson comes in and looks fantastic. The full-backs weren’t good enough at City, he got rid of them, spent £130m on three new ones and just dealt with the issue.
“He has got to deal with the issue and Jurgen Klopp is the only one who can do that. It is staring everyone in the face. What I would say is that the toughest part of coaching a football team is making them inventive going forward. Liverpool are fantastic going forward. If he fixes that defence he has got a real chance.
He’s right. Whereas Guardiola identified and replaced the problems in his squad, Liverpool still have Mignolet as their first-choice keeper. Joel Matip is injured, yes, but the fact Klopp did not have a recognised central defender on the bench for a game of this magnitude says a lot about Liverpool’s recruitment.
Neville proceeded to question the personnel Klopp has at his disposal, arguing that the likes of Simon Mignolet, Dejan Lovren and Ragnar Klavan are not the standard of defensive players that can be relied upon during a title bid.
“You look here: Ragnar Klavan? Really? Dejan Lovren has disappointed me even though he was fantastic at Southampton. Joe Gomez is young so I think he’s got some development to do.
“Simon Mignolet we have talked about, Loris Karius we have talked about. And then you talk about the left-backs, you play James Milner there, you play Andrew Robertson there, you play Alberto Moreno there. Can you trust them in the biggest games?
https://twitter.com/1811MAG/status/944337252221628416
“So if you look at that and you say, ‘Do I want Moreno at left-back? Do I want Robertson at left-back? Do I want Klavan as my centre-back playing at Real Madrid away or Barcelona away?’ You can’t. You can’t have those players in those games. It’s impossible. So they’ve just got to go.
Liverpool have now lost 43 points from winning positions under Klopp, since the German took charge back in 2015, and that largely comes down to an unreliable defence. When leading games, Klopp has often not been able to rely on a safe pair of hands and a tight defence to see the Reds through to three points. However, the former Borussia Dortmund coach is also culpable, having spent lavishly on attacking players while failing to secure a central defender in the summer.
