Jurgen Klopp has again reiterated that the personnel in our backline is not the reason for consistently poor defensive performances.
Ragnar Klavan had a nightmare against Manchester City, while Dejan Lovren let himself down against Sevilla – at fault directly for one goal and potentially the second as well.
It’s led to enormous criticism from pretty much everyone about the manager’s refusal to enter the transfer market during the summer and recruit a new centre-back, once we realised Virgil van Dijk was simply unattainable.
But Klopp thinks Liverpool’s defensive issues are to do with his entire team and has again defended the increasingly indefensible…
“The first goal the other night, there were five mistakes before the final mistake,” he told the press.
“The second goal was a quick throw-in and before he came between those defenders, there were one or two situations [to avoid].
“Sometimes situations are not to defend any more: it was unlucky how he went through the two boys and then scored.
“It’s our job to work with it. If there was a quality problem, if there was a solution out there, we would have done it.”
Naturally, fans reacted to these suggestions that no other defender in world football bar van Dijk, would have benefited us this summer.
There is almost nothing more frustrating to me in life than someone trying to sell me on why something is ok when it’s not. We r not idiots!
— Henry Charles (@hgcNYC) September 15, 2017
What is he talking about? What @John_W_Henry done to him?
— theba301 (@theba301) September 15, 2017
He must see it. Everybody else does. Didn’t strengthen in key areas. And tbh tactically not clever enough
— nishmcnish8 (@nishmcnish) September 15, 2017
What a complete load of bullshit. There was probably at least 20 cbs lfc could have tried to sign and didn’t. Lovren and Klavan suck.
— Craig Fisher (@1CraigFisher) September 15, 2017
Worrying if he honestly believes that.
— Gary Thompson (@GFThompson7) September 15, 2017
There WAS a solution out there. Nothing happened, nothing changed. pic.twitter.com/DBFHazOeAY
— Mekalyed (@Metal_Butty) September 15, 2017