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Liverpool labelled 'mentality midgets' as Jurgen Klopp bemoans unacceptable performance
Liverpool were accused of becoming “mentality midgets” by their former defender Jamie Carragher after their Premier League title defence lurched further into disarray with a sixth consecutive home defeat, this time to relegation-threatened Fulham.
On another dismal day for the reigning champions, Mario Lemina’s first-half goal - which arrived courtesy of a terrible error by Mohamed Salah - proved enough to secure a priceless win for the visitors and leave Liverpool facing a desperate fight to secure Champions League football next season.
It prompted a withering assessment from former Manchester United captain Roy Keane, who suggested it was now “crisis time at Liverpool”, and from the club’s former players, with Graeme Souness labelling their decline “unfathomable” and Carragher questioning their attitude.
“That man [Jurgen Klopp] rightly called his side the 'mentality monsters' and they deserved that tag last season,” he said on Sky Sports. “Right now, they are like 'mentality midgets'. His side haven't dealt well with adversity at all at any stage.”
Doubts around Liverpool’s approach were also voiced by Fulham’s Harrison Reed, who suggested his side had shown more desire than Liverpool.
"I think we did want it more, that was evident on the pitch, from the first whistle, and that was a big factor in getting the three points today,” said Reed.
Klopp responded: “When you win in a situation like Fulham you say these kinds of things. The winner is always right, but I don’t see that problem. “The boys wanted to win this game today. I saw that. We still made mistakes. That’s the problem. That’s not because you don’t 'want it' - the boys don’t want to make mistakes. We just made them. We have really tight results in the moment, pretty much always against us, and we have to make sure we win football games again. If it’s a 1-0, it’s fine, fight for it with all you have and then you can gain confidence and momentum maybe again. At this moment we don’t have that.”
Klopp nevertheless accepted that his side’s slump in standards - no Premier League-winning team has suffered a bigger drop-off in points at this stage of their title defence than Liverpool this term - was unacceptable.
“Not good enough. Concede a goal, do not score, we lost the game, so not good enough,” he said. “We have to win football games. We have to win one football game. That would be helpful.”
Klopp has generally sought to avoid referencing Liverpool’s injury issues as an excuse for their position - unless specifically asked - but given the questioning of the mentality of those suffering the latest setback he pointed towards those missing stars.
“We obviously have a lot of players who stand for mentality not on the pitch in the moment, who can be like a leader in these moments and stuff like that,” said Klopp.
“That’s clear. I try to answer all the questions, the thing is just we got that many knocks; you can want to win a game because you won all the others before, or you want to win a game because it is a while ago that you won a game. That is more our situation.
“Believe me, these boys want (it) but it doesn’t work at this moment and there are some reasons for it. We don’t score goals and we concede at least one, which at the moment looks like it is enough against us. You can discuss whatever you want, obviously, I cannot just answer and say, ‘Yeah, we don’t have the mentality’. We have mentality, it’s just not the mentality we are used to probably, but the boys want to win games.”
Klopp said he made seven changes to his line-up because many of his preferred starting XI needed to be protected given their schedule.
Working as a Sky pundit, former captain and manager Souness suggested that Klopp picked the wrong game to rest the likes of Sadio Mane, Fabinho, Thiago and Trent Alexander-Arnold, inviting more pressure with his line-up.
“The message that is sent to Fulham is they are not showing us enough respect. As a manager that's how I would have interpreted it," said Souness.
“When you hand the initiative to the opposition, it's totally wrong. The way I was brought up, start right, get your goals and then maybe make changes.
“It is unfathomable. It beggars belief how a team can go from being so good to so average. People talk about the manager, but Jurgen Klopp has learned a lot about his dressing room. It's about players. Some of them have not stood up to the challenge.”
Liverpool’s most realistic chance of preserving Champions League football at Anfield is to win the competition. They return to Budapest to play the second leg of their round of 16 tie with RB Leipzig on Wednesday.
“You have to think and to concentrate and focus on the next game and to go again,” said Klopp. “The next game is in a different competition where we didn’t do too bad so far, but it will be a tough one, obviously, so we have to make sure we are ready for that. If we can go through, which is not guaranteed, then that could give confidence. Then we have Wolves, which is a tough one and then we have a couple of weeks off because of the Chelsea game and the international break.
“We have to use that time. We have to hope all the boys who go to their national teams come back healthy, like always. Then I think there are another nine or 10 games to go, sounds like 27 or 30 points, so a lot to go for and we will try.”
