Nottingham Forest great Roy Keane piled into Liverpool as their Premier League title defence continues to fall apart.
Jurgen Klopp's side were beaten 4-1 by a rampant Manchester City side at Anfield on Saturday, to leave them fourth in the table, 10 points behind leaders City having played a game more.
Speaking as a pundit on Sky Sports, former Reds midfielder and assistant manager Keane gave a damning verdict on Liverpool and Klopp.
"They're making a lot of excuses. To me they've been bad champions," the Manchester United legend said after the game.
"I'm not just talking about today. You can lose a game of football but I can't figure this group out.
"You can be beaten in a game but there's a way to get beaten. I think they've all believed the hype over the last year or two. It's as if they won the league last year and got carried away.
"In my mindset, when you've won a league title, the next challenge is can we do it again?
"I never got the impression from this group and from the manager in their interviews when they won it last year, it wasn't them saying what's the next step for Liverpool?
"It was almost just let's enjoy this. It had been a long wait for them, 30 years, but I never heard them say let's do this again. That's the key.
"Now they're trying to get in the top four from winning the league last year."
Even before the match, Keane was unconvinced by Liverpool as he said they had been making excuses for poor form, having lost five of their 23 league games this season.
"What we don't want to hear from Liverpool is excuses. There's been a lot of excuses over the last few weeks - City have had an extra break, a fixture pile-up," he said.
"There's been plenty excuses from the manager. There's been injury problems of course, but we can say that about Man City."
