Former Newcastle United and England star Alan Shearer laid into the performance of Joel Matip as Liverpool were comfortably beaten 3-0 by Wolves yesterday.
The Reds’ misery continued with a poor performance at Molineux, with Matip putting the ball into his own net early on and generally struggling to deal with the Wolves attack.
Liverpool are now on a run of just one win from seven games in all competitions, and have bigger challenges coming up with fixtures against Everton, Newcastle and Real Madrid.
Matip is far from the only one to blame, with stars like Mohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Jordan Henderson also all looking a long way from what they used to be, but Shearer singled out the former Cameroon international for a particularly poor performance yesterday.
Speaking on Match of the Day, the pundit said: “You have time to pick your pass, no pressure on the ball, it’s too easy. Gomez is out of position. Look at Matip, you have time to pick your pass and put it in behind. Matip stops. I mean, he is on his way over there to close them and he stops. I don’t know what he’s doing. He had a nightmare.
“Then, all of a sudden (the ball is in the back of the net for the opening goal) and it’s a little bit unlucky with that (the ball hitting him and going in). But again, one simple pass out. They have gone past the three midfielders. You are in the back four, into the final third, causing them problems.
“This is the second goal, ball in. No closing down. Why doesn’t Robertson close them down?! Which he should do. Why doesn’t Keita close them down?! Then, you can take a touch and put the ball in the middle and you get punished. 2-0 down after 11 or 12 minutes.
“Matip, again. Not acceptable. Not good enough. That should be in the back of the net (Nunes’ one-v-one chance) – when the ball goes through (for Wolves’ third), the reaction or lack of reaction from Thiago when he’s chasing Neves. He can see Neves, but he doesn’t even try to stop him. It’s a brilliant goal from Wolves.”
Liverpool surely need to make changes all over their squad in the summer, but defence could be a good place to start as Matip and Virgil van Dijk have shown signs of their age this season after years of being such a solid partnership.
Alan
The strikers have been given 2/3 times on a plate to score but they were unsuccessful . They are paid big sums every week to show their performances. Salah is earning £400,000 per week which in Egypt / Africa would be in millions.
Defence is horible. Everyone telling Klopp that Gonez has no Defence qualities but Klopp is not listening. Lets hope when the injured players returned in March LFC will give us hope.
Good people, the whole team is playing League One football.
Over reliance on players who obviously are struggling is mindbogling. Every player should henceforth be fined for their bellow par performances. Maybe then we’ll see a change of attitude, when we hit their pockets.
I am impressed by Alan’s analysis on Liverpool players. This was coming and Liverpool closed their eyes not to see it. I have been saying it that Van Dijk is no more the one we used to see before his bad long term injury. Liverpool should have gone on the market to look for a better backup for Van Dijk. Matip, had good moments but even those times he couldn’t play 3 consecutive games he was always back to the treatment table. Gomes, before that long injury in 2015, he looked like a real deal of a prospect defender. I remember a friendly game against Brazil. He neutralised Nymar to a shadow. But he got injured while on international duty. Since then he never improved. Everyone was surprised when he was given a 5yr contract last year. Raheys and Nat Phillips should have been given more chances. I find their partnership 2020/2021season when all centre backs and senior midfielders were out injured was really promising. But up to today Nat Phillips is just sitting on the bench. Konate, is the same. He never plays two games is out. There are so many hiccups in this squad.
Even when desasters are happening at the back he is not given a try. Why? Nobody knows. Liverpool have to look for better back players in the whole defence.
Midfield is in shambles. Full of injury prone players. It is a gamble not to look in the market for good players simply because you don’t know what to do with your long term injured players when they come back. You don’t know whether they will pickup after long injury and it is known that only by lucky players from long term injuries are going to be that good again.