Gary Neville says Ibrahima Konate was ‘all over the place’ against Leeds and Liverpool’s dejected squad will be in a ‘very dark place’ following the 3-3 draw.
Liverpool had looked on course for a comfortable victory after Hugo Ekitike struck twice in the space of three minutes at the start of the second half to put the Premier League champions in the driving seat.
But roared on by the Elland Road crowd, Leeds fought back, with Anton Stach levelling after Dominic Calvert-Lewin had found the net from the penalty spot.
While the impressive Dominik Szoboszlai beat Lucas Perri to restore Liverpool’s lead, the hosts refused to lie down and dug deep to find a dramatic equaliser, through Ao Tanaka, in the sixth minute of stoppage time.
The result leaves the Merseyside giants are languishing down in eighth place, ten points adrift of top-of-the-table Arsenal. The Reds have managed just one win in the their last six matches in all competitions.
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Mohamed Salah’s explosive attack on Arne Slot – after being left on the substitutes bench – has only added to the feeling of crisis and gloom at Liverpool.
‘What was the thing Liverpool had to do? It was compete with Leeds in the first half and nullify them, shut them up, keep the crowd quiet and get your game going,’ Neville said on Sky Sports’ The Gary Neville Podcast.
‘They did that so I thought it was a professional first half from Liverpool without anything speculator happening up front.
‘Then, all of a sudden, you get the goal. Leeds make a mistake, Hugo Ekitike’s blistering pace, gets onto it, finishes, boom.
‘I was asking them a lot in the first half to play the balls earlier into the box and I think Conor Bradley did that. Again, Ekitike was brave, gets in there, 2-0, game over. You’ve won the game.
‘Arne Slot then makes substitutions, he’s telling his team, “We’ve won this game, this is now about shape, it’s about concentration, focus, game-management”, and they’ve not been capable of it again.’
Neville was especially concerned by Konate’s performance at the back and felt Liverpool were their own worst enemy at times at Elland Road.
‘They’ve created their own problems and even at 3-2 you were almost like, “Something could happen”, because you don’t trust them. You can’t trust them, they’ve lost trust,’ the ex-Manchester United and England right-back added.
‘They’ve got a lot of credit in the bank, these players and this manager, for what’s happened over the last 18 months with winning the league.
‘But they’re losing it rapidly and it’s getting to the point where they’re making mistake after mistake after mistake.
‘I thought Konate and [Virgil] van Dijk did handle the two threats up front aerially really well in the first half but the minute that Leeds started to bring on the little players, the players that were a bit more tricky, Konate started to look a little bit all over the place.
‘It’s a really bad day for them, a really bad day, and they got a lifeline by going in 3-2. I thought Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai were the two best players and Szoboszlai gets the goal and you think, “Right, that’s it”, but the nine minutes impacted them didn’t it? I don’t think they were happy with the nine minutes.
‘I don’t know where the nine minutes came from but you could see they weren’t confident in the nine minutes.’
Neville continued: ‘It’s a bad one and they’ll be dejected going back to Liverpool on that coach.
‘They will be in a very dark place. I don’t think they will be in a good place at all.’
Serious questions have been asked of Slot’s future in recent weeks, despite the Dutchman’s extraordinary success in his first year at the helm last term.
But Neville is adamant that Slot has enough credit in the bank and Liverpool must stick with the former Feyenoord boss through thick and thing for the time being.
‘I can’t entertain the idea of Arne Slot and talking about his job. That’s not for me. They won the title four months ago,’ he went on.
‘There’s definitely a problem, there’s definitely an issue of settling this new team, this group of players who have come together, into the squad.
‘What’s happened with Salah and what’s happening with Isak, what’s happening with the defenders, what’s happening with the full-backs… there’s lots of questions and you can tell he’s still trying to answer them.
‘He’s probably not going to answer those questions for a while yet. It may even need a transfer window to sort of refine things again. It might need a couple to leave and a couple to come in to get to where he wants to.’
Speaking to the BBC shortly after the final whistle, Slot admitted he was in ‘disbelief’ that his side had once again faltered in such dramatic fashion.
‘There’s a sense of disbelief,’ the Liverpool head coach said.
‘I think we played quite well to very well during large parts of the game and went 2-0 up.
‘I don’t think we had any problems and I don’t think we conceded a chance until the moment we make a foul which is not even a chance.’
Pressed for his response to Salah’s post-mark remarks, Slot replied: ‘Like I said before the game, we have to accept the situation we are in, and I make my choices based on that.’
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