Gary Neville comments on “strange” decisions by Jurgen Klopp in Liverpool’s defeat to Arsenal
Manchester United legend Gary Neville has commented on Liverpool’s dire season continuing with a 3-2 defeat away to Arsenal at the weekend.The Sky Sports pundit admits he found some of Jurgen Klopp’s substitutions strange, even if Trent Alexander-Arnold had to go off, regardless of whether or not he was really injured.Neville was unconvinced by some […]
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Manchester United legend Gary Neville has commented on Liverpool’s dire season continuing with a 3-2 defeat away to Arsenal at the weekend.
The Sky Sports pundit admits he found some of Jurgen Klopp’s substitutions strange, even if Trent Alexander-Arnold had to go off, regardless of whether or not he was really injured.
Neville was unconvinced by some of the other tactical decisions Klopp made, however, with Liverpool ending the game with Jordan Henderson and Harvey Elliott appearing to play out wide.
“Even the substitutions were a little bit strange,” Neville said on the Gary Neville Podcast, as quoted by the Metro.
“Salah coming off, obviously I think Trent had to come off at half time even if he wasn’t injured.
“But Salah coming off then Jota coming off, and they ended up needing a goal with Harvey Elliott left wing and Jordan Henderson right wing, it just felt a little bit strange.
“Look, they have got enough credit in the bank this Liverpool team and this Liverpool manager. And this Liverpool manager has done the best job of any manager in the last six, seven years, with what he has had to work with in terms of budget compared to the rest.
“So, they have enough credit in the bank for us not to go wild on them and say: ‘This is the end of Liverpool’. That’s not the case here, but there are concerns and worrying signs that things are nowhere near.
“Actually it’s not the performance or the result at times, it’s the actual energy and the appetite in the games that they have had over the last few years in terms of trying to defend and press.
“I’ve not looked at every single statistic in the running stats and Jurgen Klopp may have and his sports science coaches might have statistics to say they are running and sprinting as much as they used to, but to the eye, it looks nothing like it used to in terms of how they’re hunting and moving together as a unit, all squeezing across to one side, all squeezing up to a space.
“They look two or three yards off, and two or three yards in football is everything. If you’re a yard off a world-class player it’s too much.
“Liverpool being two yards off where they were just feels very stark to the eye when you’re watching it in the second half because they didn’t come out in the second half. I know they got back into the game, which is a strange thing to say, but Arsenal were by far the better team in that game in the second half and deserved to win in the end.”
Needless to say, this is not like the Liverpool of old, and many fans will surely be just as baffled by some of the manager’s decisions here.
Liverpool are down in 10th place in the Premier League at the moment, winning only two of their eight league games so far, while they also recently suffered a humiliating 4-1 thrashing at the hands of Napoli in the Champions League.
The post Gary Neville comments on “strange” decisions by Jurgen Klopp in Liverpool’s defeat to Arsenal appeared first on CaughtOffside.