Former Tottenham star Garth Crooks has ripped into Liverpool following their dreadful defeat at Wolves and accused record signing Darwin Nunez of "stage fright".
The Reds have now gone four games without a win in the Premier League, leaving them 11 points adrift of the Champions League qualification places. Their season is now on life support, with their hopes of finishing in the top four fading.
Jurgen Klopp's men are struggling in both attack and defence, conceding three goals in three successive away games and scoring just once in that time. Amid those struggles in front of goal, Crooks has now taken aim at club record signing Nunez.
The Uruguayan arrived in the summer transfer window from Benfica, but has scored just five top-flight goals this term. And that has led to Crooks blasting the striker, along with six of his team-mates.
" Liverpool are leaking goals. I said some time ago that injured defender Virgil van Dijk is their most important player and one clean sheet in their last 10 away Premier League matches rather proves the point," Crooks wrote for BBC Sport.
"At the moment, Liverpool look average at best. This was another excellent performance from Neves against a Liverpool side that seemed to be lacking in every department. What on earth has happened to Joe Gomez, Thiago and Naby Keita?
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" Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson's recent lack of form is also most worrying, while forwards Darwin Nunez and Mo Salah hardly had a kick. I'm beginning to think Nunez is suffering from stage fright.
"Clubs don't come much bigger than Liverpool and the pressure can be enormous. Nunez is really struggling in front of goal."
Reds boss Klopp lambasted his side after their dire defeat at Molineux, blaming a lack of confidence for their recent struggles. And the German conceded that the loss was a mess all of their own making.
"It's really difficult to summarise. The team is not full of confidence, you can see that – the first 12 minutes were obvious, but it was about defending, being compact, being active. Do you need a lot of confidence for that? I am not so sure," he added.
"Put your body between the ball and the opponent, block the ball and these kind of things, avoid the cross. You saw Stefan Bajcetic full of confidence, he plays football for as long as we kept him on the pitch.
"All the others, started a bit different, but second half, with low-confidence levels, playing this kind of game, I think nobody would have been surprised if we scored here, that we could have scored once and twice and then let's have a look at the game.
"I know it is hypothetical, 100 per cent, but that was possible. We caused the problems ourselves, how can that happen? I cannot always cover things, it was obvious – we do it in public, that's why everyone can see it."
