Jamie Carragher has slammed Liverpool ’s performance against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League as pressure continues to mount on under-fire manager Arne Slot .
The Reds face an uphill battle to reach the semi-finals of Europe’s elite club competition at Anfield next week after an abject 2-0 loss to PSG in their last-eight first-leg clash in France on Wednesday night.
It was a chastening night for Liverpool , who were extremely fortunate to only concede twice as they managed just 26 per cent possession across the 90 minutes and failed to muster a single shot on target with an XG (Expected Goals) of just 0.17.
The latest demoralising loss followed Saturday’s 4-0 demolition by Manchester City in the FA Cup quarter-finals and a 2-1 defeat at Brighton in the Premier League prior to the recent international break, with the prospect of winning any silverware this season now looking extremely remote amid a fierce battle just to seal a return to the Champions League next term.
Slot faces worsening criticism from frustrated fans and his decision to deploy a back five in Paris - with Mohamed Salah surprisingly remaining an unused substitute - backfired in what was their 16th loss across all competitions in a troubled campaign that has come as a huge shock after Liverpool won the Premier League title in the Dutchman’s first season at the helm as Jurgen Klopp’s successor before lavishing around £450million on new players in the summer transfer market.
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“In some ways, it’s actually a great result for Liverpool,” Reds great Carragher said after the PSG game in his role as a pundit on CBS Sports.
“It should have been five or six in that game.
“The gulf between the two teams was absolutely startling really.
When you consider last season, yes Liverpool got battered at PSG [in the last 16] and they won 1-0, we know that, but the second leg at Anfield was a really close game between two top teams.
“Liverpool then go and spend £450m, probably a lot more than PSG spent in the summer.
To see the gulf there is worrying.
You think: ‘How has it got to that?
How has it got that bad?’
“When you think of the manager and how he set up...
Okay, he’s tried something, but he’s got it massively wrong tactically about how he went about it.
“It's easy for me to say that after the event, but that's what we do, we are pundits, we speak after the game.
“He went about it with the back five all wrong.
They were actually more open with a back five than with a back four, because they went man-to-man all over the pitch, and the three centre-backs had to cover the width of the pitch.
“And for Virgil van Dijk, watching him tonight in the middle of a back three...
Normally, when you get to a certain age, you think: ‘Middle of a back three is perfect for me, getting on, everyone is in position, you are getting a bit of protection, you are in your back five’.
“This was different.
Defenders were jumping into midfield, there was no one to mark and Van Dijk, at 34 years of age, was having to run across.
He couldn't do it.
“People have criticised Van Dijk this season for his performances, and I think that's been harsh.
“He plays every game, the fella next to him [Ibrahima Konate] has been awful all season and was poor again tonight.
He makes a mistake every game, so that's not easy to play alongside.
“I still think he has been one of Liverpool's better players, Van Dijk, but tonight in that back three, I have never seen him so uncomfortable in a Liverpool shirt in my life.
“I think he'll be pleading with Arne Slot to never play that system ever again, because he found it so tough.
“But I must also say, it is not just the system of Liverpool and getting it wrong tactically.
PSG were absolutely out of this world.
The biggest compliment I can give them, it was like watching Pep Guardiola's Barcelona.”
Carragher - who strongly rejected fellow CBS pundit Peter Schmeichel’s claim that Slot’s side were at least “compact” defensively in Paris - also pinpointed a key reason for Liverpool’s struggles this season as having “too many players that are arrogant on the ball but not humble off it.”
He added: “That was like watching a team from a lower division playing someone...
you know, the gulf in class was very worrying from a Liverpool point of view.”
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Source: This article was originally published by Evening Standard
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