‘Criminal’ – Ex-Liverpool player was fuming after what he saw from the Reds on 51 minutes
The Carabao Cup final has proven to be a happy occasion for Liverpool in recent years, but that hasn’t proven to be the case at Wembley today.
The Reds were woefully underwhelming against Newcastle, who closed in on their first major domestic trophy in 70 years with goals from Dan Burn and Alexander Isak.
The Swedish striker momentarily thought he had another goal to his cup final tally in the 51st minute when, at 1-0, he turned the ball to the net from close range. However, Bruno Guimaraes was standing right in front of Caoimhin Kelleher in an offside position, with the strike duly disallowed.
Warnock slams ‘criminal’ Liverpool defending
That didn’t prevent Stephen Warnock from letting rip about his former club over the manner in which they let the Magpies win the first ball from the corner kick, just as they did for Burn’s goal on the stroke of half-time.
Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live (17:41), the ex-LFC defender raged: “It was criminal from Liverpool. How many times do you want to allow a Newcastle player to win the first header?”
Plenty to work on for Slot and Liverpool during international break
Arne Slot will be fuming over the manner in which both goals were conceded, as well as the one that Isak had disallowed for offside.
From failing to mark up properly when defending corner kicks, to being beaten in the air for the knockdown for the Swede’s strike to double the lead, Liverpool were abject in the game’s most crucial moments and offered next to nothing in attack.
There were a couple of contentious moments involving Kieran Tripper in the first half, such as his aerial foul on Luis Diaz and a strong penalty shout for a handball which was cleared, but on the whole the Reds simply haven’t been good enough throughout the match and played nowhere near their best.
Most of Slot’s players will depart for international duty over the coming days, but between now and the Merseyside derby on 2 April, we imagine that set-piece defending will be heavily drilled in training after today’s costly fallibility in that regard.
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