Klopp Hasn’t Addressed Major Issues At Liverpool

Liverpool made a shaky start in the Champions League shipping two goals at home to Sevilla and I’d have to agree with some of the comments this week from the likes of Eamon Dunphy and Roy Keane about their defence.

Regardless of being down to ten men against Manchester City, they looked so poor defensively. They are wide open and vulnerable any time a team attacks and there doesn’t seem to be any sort of motivation or work going into it. As a result, they won’t mount any serious challenge in the Champions League.

Same Old Problems
They may be able to post a decent league finish this season but if they come up against a Juventus, Munich, Madrid, or Barcelona they won’t have anywhere near enough. Look at what Paris Saint-Germain did to Celtic in Glasgow during the week. If Liverpool were to come up against that front three at any stage they wouldn’t be able to compete.

The surprising thing is that defensive woes at Liverpool are not a new concept. With Brendan Rodgers, they had a great side going forward with Luis Suarez and in the last few years Coutinho has showed great sparks in forward positions. Now they have the pace of Salah and Mane and they look a potent force in the final third yet again.

Those players could get into the top sides in Europe but their defenders?

We didn’t learn anything new about Liverpool this week, we’re seeing old traits continue. Alberto Moreno continues to struggle defensively but he’s still getting games and they can’t stop teams scoring against them. Jurgen Klopp has not addressed this major issue at Liverpool and it’s likely to come back and bite them at the business end of the season.

Arsenal To Do A United?
There’s no such Champions League concerns for Arsenal this week as they began their Europa League campaign and they need to be looking to replicate Manchester United’s run in the competition last season.

Arsene Wenger doesn’t have the squad to finish in the top four of the Premier League and like Liverpool, Arsenal’s problems are nothing new either. They are vulnerable also, they can’t keep the better sides out and they’ll most likely finish outside of the top four.

They have a good group in the Europa League and it represents their best route back to top table of European football.

Perplexing Palace
Frank De Boer only lasted four games at Crystal Palace and the million dollar question is, why did they not appoint Roy Hodgson in the summer? Why did the club change their policy of appointing more defensive-minded coaches, given their playing staff?

A radical shift from that policy towards the likes of De Boer surely required a longer period of time to be able to transform. De Boer was only given a short time and of course he couldn’t implement his ideas or make an impact on recruitment. There was no time for him to put his stamp on the club, he needed six months to put his style across but it seems…

Palace don’t have the players to play the style he wanted to introduce.

It has come back to haunt them very quickly and they’ve turned to Hodgson for a more structured and defensive approach and we may see a better unit that is more difficult to break down.

It was wrong place, wrong time for De Boer and you have to take serious looks at who’s in charge at Palace. I’m left wondering what sort of dialogue went on when he was interviewed for the job.