Jamie Carragher has urged Liverpool to ‘do something big in the transfer market’ this summer after he served up a damning assessment of their current decline following defeat to Chelsea.
After being clear of Manchester City at Christmas, Klopp’s champions now find themselves in seventh and 22 points adrift of the league leaders.
They now face a real fight to even secure a top four finish after a fifth consecutive defeat at Anfield.
Liverpool slipped to their fifth defeat at Anfield in a row after Chelsea’s win on Thursday
Jamie Carragher felt the back four of Liverpool were ‘all over the place’ up against Chelsea
Much was made of an irritated Mohamed Salah being taken off with 30 minutes remaining in another toothless display.
The Egyptian winger kicked out in frustration as he went off and his agent posted a cryptic tweet moments later to add further fuel to that particular fire surrounding his future.
But for Carragher, Liverpool ‘don’t look like scoring’ as they are currently constructed, even if he did concede it was ‘strange’ to sacrifice Salah, Liverpool’s top scorer this season.
‘They’ve lost goals, they don’t look like scoring. Even with 20 mins to go you don’t feel Liverpool are going to score a goal,’ he added.
Jurgen Klopp’s side now have ‘an uphill battle’ to try and qualify for the Champions League
‘It felt like it would need to be a big Chelsea mistake. You’re not quite sure where the goals are gonna come from. I couldn’t believe Salah came off, to take your top scorer off was a strange one. Klopp’s never been shy in taking him off, he certainly wasn’t at his best today, but it wasn’t a game where he can lose possession.
‘He’s not a great player with the ball, he’s better at running off the ball and scoring goals. I don’t know if there was something about Sunday sharpness, or the games he’s played. It’s difficult to question Klopp, but I thought it was a strange one.
‘When you need a goal you leave as many people on the pitch who can get you a goal. If Salah can get three points at the weekend maybe Klopp will be proven right.
‘But they need to do something big in the transfer market to score goals.’
Carragher feels a key part of the problem in Liverpool’s disastrous title defence is a complete absence of belief in the squad.
‘You’ve got a back four all over the place,’ Carragher said.
‘Somehow they’ve got to find a way of battling through this difficult time.
The champions have been decimated by injury and are in the middle of an awful run of form
‘It’s unprecedented, with injuries, no crowd, but you’ve got to get your head down and work as hard as possible.
‘But they’ve lost that belief, that confidence. It gets misconstrued as you’re tired or not quite at it. They’re decimated by injuries, but they’ve got to find some form.’
Carragher’s Sky Sports colleague Jamie Redknapp took aim at Liverpool’s dressing room after the defeat to Chelsea and concluded that Jurgen Klopp has ‘a lot of players feeling sorry for themselves’.
Liverpool’s decline has been in motion for weeks and months and while Redknapp was not surprised he was left to reflect on another performance where Klopp’s famed Gegenpressing was once again absent.
‘It’s not a shock right now because of the form they’ve been in,’ Redknapp said on Sky Sports.
Jamie Redknapp feels too many players in Liverpool’s dressing room feel sorry for themselves
‘One shot on target. A lot of players feeling sorry for themselves.
‘Liverpool last year were a pressing machine, they would outwork every team, and now teams are doing that to them.’
Mason Mount, who was once again superb, got the winner for Chelsea in the first half, picking up a through ball by N’Golo Kante and taking the ball around a retreating Fabinho to curl the ball into the far corner.
‘I don’t look at this Liverpool side and think ‘oh they’re big heads now they’ve won the title’,’ Carragher added.
Liverpool started the game with their 15th different defensive partnership of the season, after their backline has been ravaged by injury problems.
They are now four points behind Chelsea who are currently in fourth, and the two team above them, Everton and West Ham, each have a game in hand.
Asked where Liverpool go from here Klopp insisted it is less about tactics and more about heart if they are to arrest this significant drop off in form.
‘It’s not that we go for any kind of excuses in these moments,’ the German said.
Mohamed Salah was less-than-impressed at being brought off with 30 minutes left to play
Carragher described it as ‘strange’ for Klopp to take off Liverpool’s top scorer when it was 1-0
‘So, I think that these games are decided in moments and were always like this and to get these moments back you have to fight, and in some moments you have to fight in a different level as well. That’s what I told the boys.
‘In these moments it’s not about tactics or something like that, it’s then really about being resilient, it’s about heart, all these kind of things.
‘I don’t say the boys didn’t show heart, I know what they invest and all these kind of things but we talk about the last [and] decisive two, three, four per cent and it will never happen that we will start blaming or whatever the circumstances. That’s just not the case, we had a good team, a really good team, tonight on the pitch and played in a lot of moments good football but not in decisive moments good enough.
‘There is only one person or group to criticise for that [and] that’s me and us. That’s what I told the boys.’