As you will be sorely aware by now, Liverpool’s title defence is over.
Losing once again, this time to Leicester City, Jürgen Klopp’s men are way off the pace set by Manchester City, and could find themselves dropping out of the top four sooner rather than later.
This has also made the German manager rather prickly when it comes to pre and post-game interviews, leading Roy Keane, who isn’t the biggest Liverpool fan in the first place, to state the former Borussia Dortmund man and his club are ‘bad champions’ and accuse them of ‘making excuses’.
The comments came after the 4-1 defeat to Manchester City, and they were put to former Anfield resident Didi Hamann during an interview with Spox, who now works as a pundit on Sky Germany.
He said: “Keane’s criticism is completely exaggerated. The problems can be explained. Not only is Van Dijk missing, but Joel Matip and Joe Gomez are also. If the entire central defence isn’t there, even Liverpool can’t do anything. Thiago should pull the strings, but he still seems like a foreign body to me.
“Then there is the short break, the hassle of games. Freshness, dominance and impact are missing. In their heyday, the stole the air from opponents to breathe. Right now, they have to work very hard for every win, but I’m not really concerned about Liverpool. Klopp has achieved great things. The foundation for lasting success is in place”.
Next up for Liverpool is a last 16 first round leg in the Champions League against RB Leipzig, with the Reds needing to travel to Hungary to play the game because of Covid-19 restrictions currently set in place by Germany for flights coming in from the United Kingdom.
