Craig Burley, formerly of Chelsea and Celtic among others, has joined the chorus of criticism for Dejan Lovren – but interestingly – added Alberto Moreno to the mix.
The Croatian centre-back is woefully inconsistent and his half an hour appearance against Spurs at the weekend was arguably the worst of any Liverpool defender in recent history.
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Moreno on the other hand has enjoyed his best run of form in Liverpool red since signing from Sevilla in 2014, but Burley still doesn’t think he’s up to scratch.
Interestingly, and against what some other pundits have said, it’s nothing to do with poor attitude or determination in his opinion – but simply because they’re not good enough footballers.
“It’s nothing to do with attitude,” Burley said of Lovren and Moreno, reported in the Echo.
“It’s to do with football intelligence, it’s to do with brains, it’s to do with being able to read the game. You don’t have to be the quickest defender, you don’t have to be the biggest defender, the strongest defender, the best footballing defender, the best in the air.
“But you’ve got to be one of the best at reading the game. Liverpool defenders cannot read or smell or sniff out dangerous situations.
“We could talk about Lovren all day but he’s just made too many mistakes. He shouldn’t be wearing a Liverpool strip.”
We believe Burley is spot on, in many ways. The accusation that the likes of Simon Mignolet, Lovren, Joel Matip and whoever else are not giving their all is complete nonsense.
Nobody wants to make mistakes in front of millions of people less than the player himself.
But the evidence about their lack of football intelligence is there for all to see.
Even though Moreno has improved tenfold, there’s an argument which suggests his positioning proves a mistake is still just round the corner.