Liverpool mentality monsters? More like mentality midgets as crisis deepens | Jamie Carragher and Roy Keane

Jamie Carragher says Liverpool’s ‘mentality monsters’ are now like ‘mentality midgets’ after their 1-0 defeat by Fulham on Super Sunday.

Liverpool’s sixth straight home defeat in the Premier League sees their odds of making the top four lengthen, the latest blow in an alarming collapse for last season’s title winners.

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp had previously described his side as ‘mentality monsters’ for a string of comeback victories and last-gasp wins in the previous two seasons, but Carragher says the side right now are more like ‘mentality midgets’ following home defeats by Burnley, Brighton, Man City, Everton, Chelsea and now Fulham, scoring just once in those six games.

Roy Keane and Graeme Souness also had their say on another Liverpool disappointment at Anfield in the Sky Sports studio.

Carra: Mentality monsters? More like mentality midgets

Sky Sports’ Jamie Carragher:

“So often at these stages last season, Liverpool scored late goals, even the year before when they were chasing down Man City. That man [Jurgen Klopp] rightly called his side the ‘mentality monsters’ and they deserved that tag. But right now, they are like ‘mentality midgets’.

“Every time there is a bit of adversity, you go behind in a game, his team is just not dealing well with adversity at any stage in this last three or four months.

“It’s not acceptable from Liverpool, that sort of performance, and I’ll tell you what, I played in some really poor Liverpool teams.

“These defeats, at home, against the level of opposition, you need to find something from somewhere. It looks like top four positions now are a long way off.”

Keane: Crisis time for Liverpool

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Sky Sports’ Roy Keane:

“The biggest worry I’d have for Liverpool is that to me is they’re not playing as a team.

“The signs have been there for the last few months, you’re thinking ‘are they really that bad?’… It’s crisis time for Liverpool now.

“They are not playing as a team and that should be the manager’s biggest worry.”

Souness: Liverpool players haven’t stood up to challenge

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Sky Sports’ Graeme Souness:

“When you’re a player and you win a big trophy, that’s parked. Enjoy it for a week. Then every day you’re laying on a beach you think about the challenges coming ahead.

“I’d say some of those players haven’t done that. ‘Let’s enjoy the moment, it may never happen to us again.’

“It’s all about winning it again, and again, and again.

“It’s unfathomable. It beggars belief how a team can go from so good to so average. It’s ok asking questions about the manager but it’s about the players.

“Jurgen Klopp has found out in this moment in time what he’s got in his dressing room. Some of them haven’t stood up to the challenge.”

Klopp: No momentum this season

Jurgen Klopp on Sky Sports:

“There were moments we could have had more of an impact on the game. Conceding that goal before half-time was a massive blow. We tried to react, and the boys showed that. In the end if we don’t score goals that’s a big problem.

“We never had a momentum in the season, really, in the Premier League at least. You can see that. It’s still in the boys, they still have it all, but in the moment can’t show it. It would be a masterpiece to find out how we change that overnight.

“The only good thing is we play a different competition in three games and hopefully we can show a different face there.

“Fulham will cause us problems – it’s clear. They’re in a good moment, they’re a good team. We all agree a team like this should stay in the Premier League.”

Asked how his players are feeling, Klopp said: “Not good, obviously. But I am a human being, I have to think before I speak, I cannot go inside immediately after a game like this and have the right words. It’s a tough one to take for all of us.”

Asked if Fulham ‘wanted it more’, Klopp added: “The winner is always right. My boys wanted it. It’s easy to judge, ‘they have won it so wanted it more.’ I don’t think that’s the problem. I don’t have to stand here and say we’re fighting for this or that.”

Liverpool’s slump in stats

• Liverpool have lost six consecutive home league games, their longest ever such run, while they are the first side to lose six in a row on home soil in the Premier League since Huddersfield Town in February 2019 (seven).
• Liverpool’s six league defeats at Anfield in 2020-21 is their most in a single campaign since 1953-54 (also six), when the Reds finished bottom of the top-flight.
• Liverpool are now winless in their last eight home games in the Premier League (D2 L6), only embarking on a longer winless top-flight run at Anfield once before – 10 games between October 1951 and March 1952.
• Excluding penalties and own goals, Liverpool have failed to score with each of their last 115 shots at Anfield in the Premier League (including 16 today). Since we have exact times of shots available in the competition (2006-07), this is the longest such scoreless run of shots on home soil by any side.