Liverpool blow big chance to close in on Premier League’s top four and have nobody to blame but themselves

On the back of four straight Premier League wins, things appeared to be turning around for Liverpool despite not being overly convincing. With just four wins from their first 12 games and looking more like a mid-table team than a top-four contender, a hot run of form saw them beat Tottenham, Southampton, Aston Villa and Leicester City in a row, providing them with Monday’s opportunity — a win over Brentford, and the Reds would be just a point back of the top four, something that seemed highly unlikely just before the World Cup. 

A comprehensive 3-1 defeat at Brentford Community Stadium — the first win for the Bees over the Reds since 1938 — has Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp blaming everybody but themselves.

“We are not happy with the performance, clearly,” he told Sky Sports. 

“The set pieces they put in, they really go to the limits with all body contact. We fought back, but it was much more of a game they wanted than a game we wanted.”

The issue with his words is that all three goals were Liverpool’s direct fault and the narrative that they were overly aggressive is irrelevant. Each match is different depending on how an official goes about calling it, and some refs will let you play. Others, as we’ve seen recently, won’t. 

But each Liverpool goal was because of their poor execution and not an abundance of aggression from Brentford or a ref hiding his whistle. Take a look:

Brentford were up 1-0 on an own goal from Ibrahima Konate 19 minutes in. He stands behind his marker rather than goal side of him, and the ball hits the French defender and goes in. Poor execution.

It was poor play out of the back in the 42nd minute that directly resulted in a turnover after Harvey Elliot allowed the ball go by. Brentford made them pay moments later thanks to a header from Yoane Wissa. 

Lastly, the final blow, via Bryan Mbeumo six minutes from time, came from another Liverpool turnover. Naby Keita lost possession it after taking too many touches, and the Bees once again countered in prolific fashion.

“The third goal is a clear foul,” Klopp said afterwards.

There was very little there. What was clear was that Liverpool were not prepared for this match, for the physicality they would encounter, and too often it was sloppy and lacking any sort of cohesion. It’s been some rough sledding since Sadio Mane left for Bayern Munich in the offseason, and every team will struggle a bit when they lose arguably their best player, but Brentford were organized defensively, they didn’t make those mistakes and they made Liverpool pay for there’s. Thomas Frank’s gameplan worked just as he would have wanted, while Klopp has a lot of work to do to rebuild the Reds into the feared outfit of the past several seasons. 

Liverpool had 73% of the ball yet produced less shots on goal (six) than Brentford (seven). The Reds completed 82% of their passes compared to just 50% from the hosts. But you can have the ball and all of the passes you want, because if the end product isn’t there on both ends of the pitch, you’ll find yourself in a similar position, and that’s with Champions League qualification hopes hanging on with very little margin for error moving forward.