Rio Ferdinand and Robbie Fowler have identified the glaring problems at Liverpool after a woeful night in Naples ended in a 4-1 defeat.
Jurgen Klopp's side were pulled apart by an aggressive and confident Napoli - fresh from a five-game unbeaten run in Serie A - with goals from Piotr Zielinski, Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa and Giovanni Simeone giving the Italian outfit a 3-0 lead by half-time. Luis Diaz's strike offered little hope before a second from Zielinski compounded Reds misery.
The defeat presented a new low-point in a season already at risk of running away from Liverpool, with the apparent lack of desire and commitment a far-away world from what is always expected of Klopp's side. And former Manchester United defender Ferdinand has pin-pointed the out of form stars as the main issue.
"I think the issue for Liverpool is that too many of their star players that they have relied on are nowhere near their levels that we have become accustomed to see," Ferdinand told BT Sport.
"Salah, Virgil Van Dijk, Fabinho looks a little bit off it, you could go through the whole team, both full-backs too. Luis Diaz has shown good glimpses but as a manager, he will be saying I can normally rely on three or four of those big names for a performance, but he is just not getting that at the moment."
But while the start of the new campaign has undoubtedly been concerning, Liverpool are not out of any competition and remain within touching distance of the likes of Manchester City in the Premier League. But Klopp will need to fix the problems sooner rather than later - and ex-Red Fowler echoed the importance of upping energy and confidence quickly.
"They need to get on the training ground and try to fix those problems," Fowler added. "There was a few players, when you think of Liverpool, you should never question the desire or the commitment and that was one thing that Jurgen Klopp will do and he will tear into a few of those players and quite rightly so.
"It is just about getting that confidence back up. They look laboured, lethargic, missing that fluency that we have seen from them in the past and, it is all Liverpool’s fault. Napoli, they 'Liverpooled' Liverpool, they did to teams what Liverpool normally do to teams and Jurgen has got a lot of work to do."
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