Jamie Carragher has branded Liverpool ‘mentality midgets’ after Jurgen Klopp’s side suffered a record-extending sixth straight Premier League loss at Anfield.
Mario Lemina picked Mohamed Salah’s pocket before firing home as relegation battlers Fulham sunk defending league champions Liverpool 1-0 on their home turf.
As Klopp’s side suffered yet another worrying home league loss, the pundits lined up a volley of brickbats at the Reds – with ex-Liverpool defender Carragher leading the cohort.
Klopp’s tag of ‘mentality monsters’ to describe last term’s champions came back to haunt the German, as the Reds slipped to seventh on the table.
‘Jurgen Klopp previously called this team mentality monsters and that was absolutely right at the time,’ Carragher told Sky Sports.
‘But right now they are like mentality midgets.
‘This team is just not dealing well with adversity at any point in the last four months. And that’s just not acceptable at Liverpool.’
Klopp made seven changes for Liverpool from Thursday’s 1-0 home defeat by Chelsea, later insisting he had to rotate resources due to tiredness.
But former Reds defender and manager Graeme Souness criticised the changes, and also Klopp’s players.
‘The message that sends to Fulham is they are not showing us enough respect, as a manager that’s how I would have interpreted it,’ Souness told Sky Sports.
‘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.’
Former Manchester United midfielder Roy Keane insisted Liverpool’s situation has now hit crisis point.
‘To me they are not playing as a team, they are not a team,’ Keane told Sky Sports.
‘It’s obviously crisis time for Liverpool now.
‘They are not playing as a team and that should be the manager’s biggest worry.
‘It’s amazing what’s happened to this Liverpool team, they are a shadow of themselves.’
