Jurgen Klopp names four Liverpool players who did OK vs Man City amid ‘lucky’ admission

Jurgen Klopp admitted that far too many of his Liverpool players did not turn up in their humbling loss to Manchester City.

The Reds’ aspirations of a Premier League top-four finish took yet another hit as they fell to a 4-1 defeat at the Etihad Stadium. Despite Mo Salah giving the visitors the lead in the 17th minute, Liverpool were emphatically put to the sword by the current champions.

Julian Alvarez levelled for City before half-time before they blew the Reds away in the second period. Kevin De Bruyne netted inside two minutes of the restart before Ilkay Gundogan and Jack Grealish condemned Klopp’s side to a third successive loss in all competitions.

Klopp, speaking at his post-match press conference, couldn’t explain Liverpool’s woeful start to the second period but felt only Jordan Henderson, Fabinho, Cody Gakpo and goalkeeper Alisson Becker performed just OK.

The Reds manager said: “Everyone could see the first half was OK. Of course, City had a lot of possession but that always happens when you play here. We scored a really good goal and could have scored a second with a really good counter-attack.

“I’d say this situation was rather unlucky when Kevin De Bruyne gets the touch on the ball and it goes through Robo’s legs. It’s 1-1, OK it’s a base but you come out of half-time and they pass the ball from the outside, we are too deep in the last line. Again, City are doing well and you have to defend City in the moments you have the opportunity to do so. If you’re too deep, too passive, they will use that immediately. That’s 2-1... 3-1 is super-quick after. They have a 3/4-vs-1 situation against Jack and nobody has a challenge, the ball is in the box again and they take the rebound - and then you saw what happened.

“We were not there anymore. We were too passive, too deep, too far away from everything. If you look at the game, I think that around about four performances were OK. The two midfielders, Hendo and Fab tried to close a lot, Cody - especially in possession - and Ali of course. That’s obviously very difficult. If you want to get something, 14-15 players have to be at the top of their game and that’s not the case.

“After being 3-1 down, which is difficult to come back here, I think we had a situation maybe when Robo broke through but apart from that, City could pretty much do what they wanted and we were rather lucky they only scored one more.”

Liverpool remain sixth in the table and seven points outside of the Champions League spots.