Liverpool were once again wasteful in front of goal as they were beaten by Everton at Goodison Park.
The defeat on Wednesday evening just about put an end to Liverpool’s Premier League title aspirations and delivered Jurgen Klopp his first away Merseyside Derby defeat.
In fairness, the Reds couldn’t complain about the eventual 2-0 scoreline. Centre-backs Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate never got to grips with the physicality in Everton’s game and were deservedly punished.
Konate in particular had a poor game, with Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher slamming his performance.
However, it was not just in defence where the Reds struggled. As has been an overarching theme recently, the attack failed to fire again, too. And speaking after the game, Klopp gave an explanation why.
Jurgen Klopp explains Liverpool wastefulness
It really is frustrating to watch Liverpool these days. It isn’t that they necessarily play badly all the time, there were parts of Wednesday’s game where they did well.
But however they play, they consistently end up fluffing their lines in-front of goal.
This was true again during the trip to Goodison, with serial offender Darwin Nunez the worst of the bunch. Nunez wasn’t alone though, Luis Diaz also missed a big chance, while Mohamed Salah can’t even seem to get a shot on target right now.
And speaking via Liverpoolfc.com post-game, Klopp said he apportioned part of the blame for this pattern of profligacy to last month’s FA Cup tie with Manchester United.
“You can see we are in a rush in front of the goal, you can see that,” said the manager. “It’s long ago but I blame a little bit the [Manchester] United game for it; that many chances and you play really good but you don’t get anything for it. That’s really bad.
“Since then, we create but we don’t score often enough and that doesn’t help. It’s not like in a situation like that you don’t score and then just [think], ‘Ah, forget it, who cares?’ You cannot act like you scored 15 goals in the last two games or whatever. You can see that and that’s a problem.”
Feyenoord man could fix Liverpool problem
The simple answer to this problem is that Liverpool need to upgrade on what they have at the sharp end of the pitch.
It might sound harsh to say that, but Nunez in particular is starting to wear very thin on Reds supporters. He is missing too much, too often for far too long.
That can be forgiven in some respects if the contribution to overall play is still good, as Darwin’s has been for most of the season. But now he’s looking anonymous and missing chances. The writing could be on the wall.
As a result, we think Arne Slot’s seemingly imminent arrival could signal a change in forward. If Liverpool want to fix their goal-scoring problem then they should look at Feyenoord’s Santiago Gimenez.
There are no sure things where goal-getting is concerned, but Gimenez looks a better bet than any Reds forward not named Diogo Jota right now. A change is needed.