Liverpool have lost their last four Premier League games, leaving them at the top of the table and now seven points behind new leaders Arsenal.
Manchester United legend Paul Scholes has identified a “huge mistake” that contributed to Liverpool’s downturn. The reigning champions have suffered four consecutive defeats in the Premier League, but have only won one of their last six games in all competitions.
Coach Arne Slott hoped last Wednesday’s 5-1 thrashing of Eintracht Frankfurt in the Champions League was enough to get his team back on track. But on Saturday, Liverpool suffered a crushing defeat at Brentford, with the Reds suffering a crushing 3-2 defeat.
After Arsenal’s win over Crystal Palace on Sunday, Liverpool found themselves seven points adrift at the top of the league, despite cementing their place at the top of the table with a 1-0 win over Arsenal in August. But things have changed dramatically since then, and Scholes believes one player’s absence was a key factor in Liverpool’s nightmare run.
Alisson Becker has been out injured since sustaining a hip injury in the 1-0 away loss to Galatasaray last month. The goalkeeper saved Liverpool many times earlier in the season, but his replacement, £25 million signing Giorgi Mamadashvili, has failed to come up with the same heroics.
Alisson is expected to be out until late November, leaving the Reds with a “major” problem. “There’s something wrong with[Liverpool],” Scholes said on The Good, the Bad and the Football podcast.
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“When you have a good team, you try to strengthen it. If you win the league, you try to bring in players. For some reason, that is not happening.
“I think the goalkeeper is a big mistake. We’ve seen how important keepers have become, definitely Alisson is a big mistake. I’m not saying this keeper is playing poorly, but it looks like every shot is going in. That’s not a good quality.”
Mamadashvili is set to start in Wednesday’s Carabao Cup home game against Palace, but he is not the only concern. New left-back Milos Kerkes looks unconvincing, and his centre-back teammates Ibrahima Konate and Virgil van Dijk also look faulty.
Can Liverpool fight back against Crystal Palace? Let us know your score prediction in the comments section.
“He (Kelkes) is struggling and I think both centre-backs are struggling as well,” Scholes added. “I thought Konate was great against Manchester United, but on Saturday night when he came running back against that player (Kevin Shade) I thought: ‘He’s going to get it, he’s going to get it!’ And he almost gave up.
“They seem to have almost lost their determination to prevent goals. They will always score with the quality they have and, you know, it’s still early in the season. But they’ve already lost four games in the league and teams don’t win the league by doing that anymore. We’re talking about two or three games.”
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