Jordan slams ‘perplexing’ Klopp, Alisson comments over ‘fragile’ Liverpool

Joe Williams
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp and Alisson embrace

Simon Jordan has criticised Jurgen Klopp and Alisson for claiming Liverpool needed a confidence boost against Rangers in the Champions League,

The Reds bounced back from a 3-3 draw at home to Brighton on Saturday with a comfortable 2-0 victory over Rangers on Tuesday night.

A stunning free-kick from Trent Alexander-Arnold gave Liverpool the lead early on before Mo Salah sealed the three points with a penalty after Luis Diaz was tripped in the area.

After their draw with Brighton – which saw Liverpool drop 11 points behind Premier League leaders Arsenal – Alisson and Klopp admitted to confidence issues.

Alisson said: “It’s not a good feeling, in football you play with that as well – with feeling and with confidence and this feeling and confidence we have to build back up again, to bring it back to the team and we have to start to build up, as soon as possible”.

Asked the lack of confidence from his side was worrying, Klopp told reporters: “Concerning I am not sure is the right word but we can’t ignore the fact.

“But the Ajax game (their previous match 18 days ago in which they scored an 89th-minute winner) didn’t give us any kind of rhythm.

“That’s something you usually get from these situations. With the late goal we would have taken a lot of things into the next game, but unfortunately we didn’t play and since then that feeling is pretty much gone.

“We had confident moments today – Bobby for the second goal, you could see a lot of that – but the passing game was not good.

“We passed balls all over the place, which we can only explain by saying we were not confident in that moment, because of how the game started.

“We are under pressure, we don’t ignore that, we don’t increase it every day but it is there.”

And former Crystal Palace chairman Jordan insisted that their comments showed a “fragile” side to Liverpool.

Jordan said on talkSPORT: “If you are as fragile, as there seems to be indications Liverpool are, because we heard the manager and the goalkeeper talk of a necessity of a confidence [boost], which I found quite perplexing. If you need to beat Rangers in the Champions League to gain confidence then you need to look at yourselves.

“Every win builds momentum. I would’ve thought there would be more damage, there’s less upside than there would’ve been downside.

“So my point in that is that it’s expected for Liverpool to win. It’s expected for them to ease past Rangers, which they duly did.

“If it had gone the other way and they’d have drawn or lost, then the confidence depreciation would’ve been far more significant, and the headlines that would’ve been written would’ve been far more damning than ultimately Liverpool beating Rangers in a Champions League game that you would’ve expected them to win, irrespective of their most recent form, notably against Brighton on Saturday.”

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