Rio Ferdinand believes Jurgen Klopp will be concerned with the way his side have gone off the boil and called on Liveprool’s players to become more humble.
The Reds were thrashed by Napoli in their first Champions League Group A game on a night to forget in Italy. Klopp's side were 3-0 down at half time but it could easily have been more as Alisson Becker saved a penalty.
Napoli won the contest at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona as Piotr Zielinski struck twice and Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa and substitute Giovanni Simeone also got on the scoresheet. Luis Diaz netted a consolation in the second half for the Reds.
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And after an underwhelming start to their Premier League campaign, with just two wins from their opening six matches, Ferdinand believes there will be concern in the Liverpool camp due to the lack of togetherness currently on show.
“That is a concern and that is what Klopp will be sitting there scratching his head about,” he told BT Sport. "You understand the odd player going off the boil, but to see them all go off the boil the way they have.
“I would say only one player, Alisson the goalkeeper, has performed consistently to the level we expect this season out of the big players, who you expect big performances from, who they have really relied upon in recent seasons.
“But I think if you look at today’s game in isolation, the worrying thing for me is the lack of togetherness.
“I think we saw Robertson and Klopp speak about the team’s performance today and the two things that came out of their mouths first were they weren't compact.”
Liverpool will be home for their next two Champions League matches, with Ajax and then Rangers coming to Anfield, and when asked how Kop boss Klopp can fix the problems his current side have, Ferdinand claimed a back to basics approach is needed.
He said: “You have got to go back to basics and when you go into a game you have got to have in-game management and understand where you are at.
“They have both said they kept getting in, it felt like they had an extra player, okay put the brakes on and let's sit in, analyse the game a little bit and let the game come to us.
“Liverpool are a team on the front foot and always go and grab the game and take it off the opponent. Sometimes you have got to be a bit humble and see where you are at. We are getting picked off a little bit, Trent and Andy Robertson, sit in.
“Fabinho, you sit in front, and we are going to make it hard for them. At no point in this game did they say to Napoli you try and break us down now.
“They kept allowing the spaces for them to run into and they kept allowing them to have that confidence to actually play balls through the pitch, over the top and behind because they were allowing and giving them that.
Before he added: “Listen, I will repeat what I said on the show before, they are not a bad team overnight. They have just got to iron these things out.”
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