Jamie Carragher thinks the “title is slipping away” from Liverpool after they lost 1-0 to Burnley in the Premier League on Thursday night.
Ashley Barnes’s 83rd-minute penalty was his 100th senior club career goal and he became the first Burnley player to score an away league goal since October 3.
For Liverpool, whose 68-match unbeaten run at home was brought to an end, their goal drought now stretches to seven hours and 18 minutes.
OPINION: Liverpool in danger of slip, sliding away as Anfield is breached
And Carragher felt that Mo Salah, Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino, Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold were all nowhere “near their best” against the Clarets.
Carragher told Sky Sports: “I can’t remember a time when this Liverpool team have been so out of form. The front three and the full-backs – all five of them – don’t feel anywhere near their best. It’s not just that they’re not scoring, it’s the general play as well. You saw with Salah, three or four times he just ran into defenders.
“Liverpool supporters will be massively frustrated. This team has brought the title back but the best Liverpool teams have brought that standard year in year out.
“Jurgen Klopp has defended the players but at this moment it looks like the title is slipping away, it will be really difficult. They’ve been so poor, it’s hard to believe what has happened to Liverpool. So many players out of form at the same time.”
And after the match, Klopp admitted that player confidence is an issue as a seven-hour goal drought contributed to the loss.
“Confidence is a small flower and obviously someone has stamped on it, and now at this moment we have to find a new one and we will. But for tonight it was not enough,” said Klopp.
“It’s not the luckiest period of our lives but it would be a bit cheap to put it only on that, that we don’t have enough luck.
“I think our problem is the decision-making at the moment and the decisions are based on the information I give and also the mood you are in and how confident you are to do it in really small spaces.
“That’s the reason we didn’t score in these moments. It is not cool to mention it but we won games with lesser possession but we didn’t win because we didn’t score in these situations.
“How is it possible we lose that game? But we lost it, we made even that happen. It is our fault and that means my fault.”