Liverpool

Liverpool

Premier League • England

Liverpool flop who ‘fell asleep’ in Toulouse loss blasted before Klopp weighs in on unacceptable defending

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp

Liverpool lost 3-2 to Toulouse in the Europa League on Thursday and Jurgen Klopp has confessed they cannot afford to concede similar goals to the ones they did.

VAR was the centre of controversy again in the match, but despite its impact on the result, it does not change that Liverpool committed some fatal errors on the way to losing their 100% record in the group stage so far.

Toulouse took the lead against them in the first half and doubled their lead after the break, before an own goal gave Liverpool a route back into the game.

But the next goal was Toulouse’s to restore the two-goal lead, which was ultimately cut again in the last minute but not permitted to be cancelled out after a stoppage-time equaliser was overruled.

Looking back to the opening goal, Kostas Tsimikas was at fault for giving up possession, only adding to the pressure on the back-up left-back.

Steve McManaman told TNT Sports: “It was poor from Tsimikas, just fell asleep and allowed the opposition to get into the game.

“Caiomhin Kelleher has no chance with the deflection, flies off Jarell Quansah’s leg into the net.

“A very unlikely lead for the home side, and not a good look at all from the Liverpool left-back.”

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Klopp admits Liverpool deserved to lose

While Klopp in his post-match debrief stopped short of naming and shaming Tsimikas, the Liverpool manager admitted their overall defending did not meet the required standards.

Klopp said: “We cannot concede the goals we conceded again.

“The first goal can happen, but then it happened in the second half with similar situations: we were completely open, last line too deep, counter-attack.

“They scored five goals, two disallowed, and that is obviously then not good. Yes, the result is the opposite of good, but the performance was just not good enough.

“It was well deserved to lose because they won pretty much all the decisive battles. We had too many situations where we should have won the ball but we didn’t.

“On top of that we gave the ball away easily at least twice – one was a goal, the other I am not sure if it was an allowed goal or a disallowed goal.

“Defending-wise it was just not good enough.”

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