Jamie Carragher Explains Frustrations with Liverpool

Over the week from September 27th to October 4th, Liverpool played three games. They started out that run top of the Premier League table. One of the consensus favourites in Europe. A side that hadn’t quite clicked into gear after a busy summer but, as defending league champions, everyone seemed to agree it was only a matter of time.

They lost all three games. Suffice to say, everyone is no longer talking about it only being a matter of time before they click into gear. Instead, the focus is now on a worryingly ineffective press. It’s on an at times naive approach to game management. It’s on new star signings and old established stars who look to be on different wavelengths.

“The thing that has frustrated me in the last two [Premier League] games is that we have allowed it to get end-to-end,” was ex-Red and current Sky pundit Jamie Carragher’s take. “Sometimes when you are playing a game it’s Liverpool are playing Crystal Palace and Liverpool are better than Crystal Palace and are the favourites to win.

“But you have been battered in the first-half, it’s 1-1, Palace are on an unbelievable run. I’m thinking, get out of there with a point. Slightly different with Chelsea, especially with the problems Chelsea have, but Liverpool were never in control of the game after it went 1-1. You’d expect them to win the game, but they were never in control.”

The problems seem easy to spot. The lack of coordination. Players pressing individually without being backed up. A balance that just seems, well, off—tweaked roles like pushing Ryan Gravenberch into more advanced areas in midfield and new signings like Milos Kerkez who provides less attacking intent at left back than Andy Robertson.

Liverpool, in short, seem a collection of very talented individuals more than a team. It’s perhaps natural after a summer of change—and with the tragic loss of Diogo Jota likely still on the minds of his friends and teammates—yet it’s hard to look at this Liverpool side and see the end goal. What this is all is meant to look like if it works.

“Even when [Arne Slot] brought Endo on [against Chelsea], it’s telling you to take the point but it didn’t feel like anybody went back to defend,” Carragher added. “People were still running end-to-end. That’s the thing that is frustrating to me. A team that are the champions and have got such experience not understanding the situation.

“Especially the Crystal Palace game when you’ve played that badly. Liverpool would be top of the league now with those two points. Losing games can happen, but it’s the manner of it and that it’s two games running.”

Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com