Liverpool: Scholes hits out at ‘sloppy’ star and backs ‘arrogant’ Slot’s side to ‘limp over the line’
Manchester United legend Paul Scholes hit out at Liverpool after they suffered a 3-2 loss against Fulham on Sunday afternoon.
Liverpool‘s loss to Fulham was their second Premier League defeat of the season as Arne Slot’s side sits eleven points clear at the top of the table.
The Reds had the chance to extend their lead at the summit after second-placed Arsenal drew 1-1 against Everton on Saturday, but they failed to take advantage.
Slot‘s team were poor defensively as Fulham battled back from behind to lead 3-1 at half-time via goals from Ryan Sessegnon, Alex Iwobi and Rodrigo Muniz.
Liverpool were far from their best and lost 3-2, with Luis Diaz pulling a goal back after Alexis Mac Allister’s early opener.
Scholes reckons Liverpool’s “sloppiness” comes from captain Virgil van Dijk, who is among the most valuable footballers due to become a free agent this summer.
He also claims the run-in could be “a bit shaky for Liverpool” if Arsenal “win all their games”.
“It [the title race] could be prolonged,” Scholes said on Premier League Productions.
READ: Liverpool only have eight players who should ‘definitely’ be there to defend title next season
“You’d expect them to beat West Ham and Leicester City. You just need someone a bit closer to them. Arsenal have to be kicking themselves because this was a real opportunity, obviously with Man City not having the quality you’d expect in the title race.
“If Arsenal were a bit closer it could have got a bit shaky for Liverpool. It still could if Arsenal win all their games – you can’t think Arsenal are going to win all their games especially with the two Real Madrid games coming up.
“But Liverpool are going to limp over the line looking at today’s performance. I sense a bit of arrogance about them, as if ‘you shouldn’t be able to land a finger on us today. You shouldn’t be able to beat us,’ and I think they’ve shown that in the last few weeks.
“A bit of sloppiness creeping in and I think it comes from the captain [Van Dijk]. I think he really needs to make sure that there’s a proper determination to get over the line as soon as possible.”
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Post-match, Slot defended his players after “three errors” were made in the loss to Fulham.
“There’s always a lot of attention around Liverpool. That doesn’t start now, that’s been there the whole season,” Slot said.
“Of course, people want to make stories but for me it’s all about playing Fulham. They’re a good team, and if you then make three errors, it’s going to be very difficult to win the game against them.
“In general, we are not making many of these errors, let alone three in one game. Today, we also had (Ibrahima) Konate losing the ball too.
“The second half was so much better than the first, but it’s hard to win a game of football at this level if you concede three goals like this.
“You could feel that we were creating a lot of chances, we’ve had a few but unfortunately, we lacked time in the end to score the third goal. That has to do with us conceding three goals, because to score three in an away game is very hard especially against a good team like Fulham.”
