Man Utd legend Gary Neville SLAMS Jurgen Klopp – and he is right
FT Desk
- Updated: 23 May 2023 08:46 CDT
- 4 min read
Manchester United legend and Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville has blasted the decline of Jurgen Klopp and his Liverpool side amidst their current crisis.
Liverpool have endured a dreadful start to the 2022-23 season, suffering yet another defeat to Arsenal at the weekend as they lost 3-2 at the Emirates Stadium.
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What did Gary Neville say about Liverpool and Klopp?
“Even the substitutions were a little bit strange,’ Neville said on Sky Sports’ The Gary Neville Podcast about the Arsenal game.
“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.”
So is Neville right about Klopp?
Well it’s hard to disagree with the controversial pundit based on the stats.
Liverpool now find themselves languishing in 10th position in the Premier League after eight games of the new season.
They have won just two of their matches and already find themselves an massive 14 points behind leaders Arsenal and 13 behind Man City.
Their chances of winning the Premier League already are over but even a top four finish cannot be guaranteed. They are six points off Chelsea in fourth.
Liverpool players breaking down physically
Physically, the team seems to be breaking down. There have been a glut of injuries so far this campaign, with Luis Diaz the latest to be ruled out until after the World Cup in November.
After seven years of Jurgen Klopp pushing the players to the limit with his heavy-metal, high-octane pressing and counter-pressing, the Liverpool players seem exhausted as Neville said.
For a team that have generally been the best and most prolific pressers in Europe, this year Liverpool are only eighth in the Premier League for team pressing in 2022-23.
They are also only 10th in the Premier League for ball recoveries and eighth for ball recoveries in the opposition half, demonstrating how much they have declined in their famed ability to hunt and win the ball back (high). The fact they have the third oldest squad in the Premier League doesn’t help.
Lastly, a host of top-class players look a shadow of their former selves such as Virgil van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Mohamed Salah.
This time, Gary Neville is right!
Read more about: Premier League, Liverpool
