A dejected Jurgen Klopp has claimed that only four of his Liverpool players put in an “OK” performance in the Reds’ 4-1 drubbing at the hands of Manchester City.
The Reds travelled to the Etihad on Saturday for their first Premier League clash since the international break.
Mohamed Salah opened the scoring for Liverpool before Julian Alvarez, who stepped in for an injured Erling Haaland, pulled back an equaliser for City ahead of half-time.
Klopp’s men were outclassed in the second half as Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan and Jack Grealish all scored and sealed all three points for Pep Guardiola’s City side.
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Liverpool are eighth in the Premier League and remain seven points adrift of the top four with 11 league matches left to be played.
The Reds are winless in their last two Premier League matches, with Liverpool suffering a shock 1-0 defeat to Bournemouth ahead of the international break.
Liverpool, who were also dumped out of the Champions League by Real Madrid, haven’t won a match since their 7-0 demolition of Manchester United in early March.
Speaking after the City match, Klopp revealed that only four of his players put in an adequate performance and left goalscorer Salah out of his picks.
“We had around about four performances [that] were OK: the two midfielders, Hendo [Jordan Henderson] and Fab [Fabinho], worked a lot [and] tried to close gaps,” he said.
“Cody [Gakpo], especially in possession, and Ali [Alisson] of course.
“And then that’s obviously very difficult if you want to get something from here, then you have to have 14 or 15 players on top of their game and that was not the case.”
Speaking to BT Sport, Klopp added: “I think we saw a first half which you could expect: a dominant City side with us well organised, having our moments.
“We caused problems and scored a wonderful goal and had another big counter-attacking moment where we could have played it better.
“At 1-1 at half-time, it’s clear, you can show the boys what we have to do and where we have to defend them.
“The key areas are clear: if you don’t control the double [No] 6, you have a real problem if you don’t control the double [No] 10.
“Then it’s pretty much impossible to play because the pitch becomes too big.
“We concede the first goal -- an open ball in midfield where we don’t even have a challenge -- then outside we are too deep and the counter-attack happens.
“If you are too deep, too passive, then they use that immediately: 2-1, 3-1. [At] 3-1, we have a massive overload on one side.
“We should win the ball but don’t even have the challenge. These kinds of things absolutely cannot happen, but they happened.
“After that, we were just open, like, wow. They could do whatever they wanted and we just had to follow.
“We were lucky they weren’t in the most greedy mood. They scored a fourth one but then they were happy. Apart from that, there is nothing good to say about this game.”
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Topics: Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool, Manchester City, Premier League, England, Football
Adnan Riaz