‘It boiled my blood’ – John Aldridge laments ‘naive’ Liverpool blunder which cost them v Brentford | OneFootball

John Aldridge was left aghast over a ‘naive’ passage of play which cost Liverpool dearly in their 3-2 defeat to Brentford on Saturday.

The Reds have now lost four Premier League games in a row, seeing them go from being five points clear at the top to occupying seventh place in the space of a month, with many believing that their aspirations of retaining the title are already over.

The Bees scored inside the opening five minutes when a long throw-in from Michael Kayode – a weapon they’ve used abundantly in recent weeks and months – was inadequately defended and Dango Ouattara was left with a straightforward finish.

Aldridge slams ‘naive’ Liverpool defending

In his latest column for the Liverpool Echo, Aldridge admonished Giorgi Mamardashvili for conceding a throw-in within range of the Reds’ penalty area and not being aware of Brentford’s threat from that particular situation.

The former LFC striker wrote: ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Giorgi Mamardashvili play a couple of poor passes out wide to Conor Bradley to concede throw-ins in dangerous areas for Brentford inside the first few minutes. Dango Ouattara gets the early goal and then once more Liverpool are left with it all to do.

‘Mamardashvili should have known about the throw-in problems that Brentford could cause and there will have been no shame in him pumping the ball long instead of difficult passes out wide to keep possession. It was so naive and it baffled me.

‘It boiled my blood seeing it unfold and Virgil van Dijk and Slot both said after the game that defending long throws was something they worked on all week in training. Clearly not enough work went into that.’

Image via Sky Sports

Liverpool should’ve been much more alert to Brentford’s throw-in threat

Brentford’s potency from throw-ins wasn’t exactly a secret coming into the game, so it did seem overly risky for Liverpool to allow Keith Andrews’ side to exploit that weapon, and it cost them massively as they conceded in the opening quarter-hour of a fourth successive Premier League match.

It wasn’t just Mamardashvili who could’ve done better – it was galling to see no Reds player win the first header from Kayode’s throw-in, a fateful lapse which made it easy for Ouattara to pounce.

The champions still had almost the entire match to respond, but the only time they laid any prolonged siege on the Bees’ goal was in second-half stoppage time after Mo Salah struck to make it 3-2. Where was that urgency in the preceding 90 minutes?

Along with Aldridge lamenting how cheaply Liverpool allowed that throw-in, Jamie Carragher bemoaned a ‘lack of physicality‘ in Arne Slot’s team, something which was unfortunately evident in the substandard attempts at defending the opening goal.

The proliferation of set-piece goals in the Premier League this season is common knowledge to the general football audience, never mind managers on substantial salaries, and Saturday showed once again that the Reds simply must be so much better at combatting that threat.

Unless that is achieved, the chances of retaining the title are practically nonexistent.