Former Manchester United captain Roy Keane has slammed Portuguese fullback Joao Cancelo for the "schoolboy defending" that led to Mohamed Salah scoring against Manchester City.
Cancelo was left marking Salah one-on-one when goalkeeper Alisson sent a long ball forward with 14 minutes left to play at Anfield.
The City fullback attempted to cut-out the pass forward but missed the ball, allowing Salah to sprint away.
Salah stayed cool and slotted the ball past Ederson, handing Liverpool a vital three points. City were unable to find an equaliser and now sit four points behind leaders Arsenal in the Premier League table.
Keane was left unimpressed by Cancelo's efforts in attempting to stop Salah and slammed the fullback.
While he admitted that he felt City were still favourites for the title, he pulled no punches in his analysis of Liverpool's winning goal.
"Schoolboy defending, why he’s tried to win the ball there, knowing if he gets it wrong, Salah is in on goal. What you do there is you slow him up, you hold him you, you get people back in around you, schoolboy defending. For an experienced player, it’s schoolboy defending, shocking," he told Sky Sports.
"I still fancy City, Arsenal have had a brilliant start, long way to go yet. You wouldn’t bet against City, Arsenal have improved, recruitment in the summer, feel-good factors back and even today, they’re getting a bit of luck, the penalty miss. You still have to fancy City.
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"They’re a brilliant team, they weren’t at their best today. Talk about Haaland, he still had two or three great chances despite not having the best service but City will bounce back. All brilliant teams bounce back."
Former Liverpool stalwart Jamie Carragher was also critical of Cancelo for his performance. He compared the City man to Reds star Trent Alexander-Arnold, who has come under fire for his defending this term.
"Cancelo is like Trent, he’s not a good defender, Trent isn’t. The reason why we’re being more critical is because he’s being exposed more. He’s not all of a sudden became a worse defender and it’s the same with Cancelo, if he had less protection, you’d see that more often," Carragher said.
Curiously, City boss Pep Guardiola appeared to point the blame for his side's defeat at midfielder Kevin de Bruyne. And he insisted that his side should have taken the chances they created.
"Well we know that Kevin did not follow the movement of Salah and after we lost the duel. A real tight game, atmosphere as always. We make a mistake and we lost a game, tight game, anything can happen," he said.
"All the game yeah we were brave, we played the game how we should play. I don’t have complaints or regrets, the chances that we had were not clear but enough. They have transitions, for five to 10 minutes we know it’s tough with the crowd.
"We make good crosses, in general, the back three was brilliant, we make a mistake and after it’s open, the stadium come up and it’s difficult. We had chances, it’s a fantastic team, it’s Liverpool but we had enough chances."
