Pundit makes ‘soft touch’ claim as Liverpool players berated for ‘lack of effort’ in Wolves defeat

Jurgen Klopp’s team put in a dismal performance as they were convincingly beaten 3-0 at Molineux in Saturday’s Premier League clash.
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Liverpool put in one of their worst performances of the season on Saturday as Wolverhampton Wanderers ran out dominant winners in the Midlands.

A Joel Matip own goal and a Craig Dawson strike on the back of a poorly defended set piece had the visitors 2-0 at Molineux inside 12 minutes. Ruben Neves wrapped up the three points for Wolves in the second half and Liverpool have still yet to win a Premier League match in 2023. The pundits were pulling no punches on BBC Match of the Day yesterday evening as they dissected the dismal performance from the Reds.

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Former Newcastle United striker and Premier League record goalscorer Alan Shearer in particular lambasted the Liverpool players for a ‘lack of effort’, particularly in the first half. He said: “The are too easy to play against, they’ve become a soft touch. No energy, in the last three away games and they’ve conceded three goals in all three games. In the second half Liverpool were a little bit better, they came out and at least they tried. He (Klopp) is not getting nearly enough out of that Liverpool team at the minute.”

Shearer continued: “You can moan about a lack of investment or about players being physically and mentally tired because of last season but today wasn’t acceptable in that first half, they should have been four or five down because of their lack of effort. When the players get home tongit and look in the mirror and say have I given enough? there’s not one of them that can say that.”

Former Arsenal forward Ian Wright was also on the couch and added to the conversation, saying he didn’t know how Jurgen Klopp or the club could go about turning things around at the moment. When asked by host Gary Lineker if he could explain exactly what was going wrong at the Merseyside club, he said: “I can’t explain it, can he get this team going again? Are they responding to him? It doesn’t look like it.

“You’re thinking, can they have a reset this season, right it off and start again in the summer but they don’t know what’s happening in the summer - is the club getting sold? What’s going on? It just seems like they are in limbo.”