Jamie Carragher was critical of two Liverpool players during the 1-1 draw against Arsenal on Saturday evening.
Mo Salah further cemented his legend status with an outstanding goal to equalise on the half-hour mark, but his fellow forwards Cody Gakpo and Luis Diaz couldn’t make much inroads on a frustrating night for them both.
Speaking in match commentary for Sky Sports (via Rousing the Kop), the former Reds defender bemoaned the lack of guile from the Dutchman and Colombian, saying: “Aside from Salah’s finish, the front three for Liverpool have been really poor.
“Salah has a moment of absolute brilliance but too often the front three are in dangerous positions and the final pass or finish [has been missing]. Mostly Gakpo and Diaz. The midfield have been doing their job winning the ball back.
“That quality in the final third has let them down. They’ve had real opportunities when it’s been turned over.”
Unfortunately for Liverpool, neither Diaz nor Gakpo had much of an impact on proceedings until they were both substituTed midway through the second half.
As per Sofascore, the Colombian lost the ball 11 times, was beaten in five of his seven duels, completed just 10 passes and didn’t get a shot on target during his 68 minutes on the pitch before he went off injured.
Meanwhile, the Dutchman lost the ball twice as often (10 times) as he completed a pass (five) and – disappointingly for a starting forward – didn’t record a single shot, failing to build upon his goalscoring display against West Ham in midweek.
We’ve seen both attackers perform much better for Liverpool than what they showed tonight, and hopefully they’ll soon get back to the standards we know they’re capable of producing. In Diaz’s case, fingers crossed that the injury which forced him off isn’t a serious one.
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