Michael Owen didn’t hold back in his assessment of Jurgen Klopp’s team selection after Liverpool’s defeat against Brighton on Wednesday night.
Liverpool suffered their second home defeat in a row after a Steven Alzate goal sealed three points for Graham Potter’s side.
The defending champions are now lagging seriously behind Manchester City in the race for the title, with Pep Guardiola’s outfit having the chance to go ten points clear with a win at Anfield on Sunday.
Liverpool looked flat against Brighton, and failed to create any meaningful chances against the strugglers.
And Owen believes Klopp’s team selection was too ‘samey’, as Thiago Alcantara, James Milner and Georginio Wijnaldum all perform the same role in midfield.
Speaking to Premier League Productions, the former striker explained that Liverpool need to have more variety in the middle of the park, and were too clustered.
He declared that Liverpool were too narrow, and didn’t have enough attacking threat from out wide as they have in previous years.
“I often think as well that Mane when he plays and Salah they’re better when they start wide,” Owen said.
“Think of the chance Salah had early on, he needs to start wide and run inside. as soon as Firmino drops in it leaves those gaps and they come wide.
“A lot of the time this season they’ve been starting narrow and then you’ve got nowhere to run the only way you can run is out and away from the goal.
“I think Liverpool are better when they have width. They get clustered.
“They have a lot of samey players in midfield in Thiago, Wijnaldum and Milner.
“I would like to seem them stretching play a lot more, upping the tempo, winning the ball high again, committing players forward to win the ball high, they have to do it, they have to stem it themselves because they don’t have the Anfield crowd.
“You can react off the crowd, it’s a powerful thing but they can’t call upon that now they need to do it themselves to get this monkey off their back, I don’t fear for them against Manchester CIty or against better teams. It’s against packed defenders that I think they’re running out of ideas.”
