Paul Scholes makes Anfield claim that even Liverpool fans might find difficult to dispute | OneFootball

Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt have suggested that Anfield no longer holds the fear factor that it did for opposition teams during the peak years of the Jurgen Klopp era.

The Reds have been held to draws at home by both Nottingham Forest and Fulham in the first month of this season, and they’ve won just four out of 12 Premier League matches on their own turf in this calendar year.

They could even have ended up losing those two most recent outings had it not been for heroic interventions from Jeremy Jacquet in both games, and their winless run at home in the top flight now stands at four when including the final few weeks of last term.

Scholes and Butt comment on loss of Anfield fear factor

The two ex-Manchester United midfielders were joined by James Milner on the latest episode of The Good, The Bad & The Football, and they noted how Anfield is no longer the fortress that it had been during the 40-year-old’s time at Liverpool.

Scholes believes that the Reds’ ailing fortunes over the past 12 months have sucked the enthusiasm out of the home support, saying: “When you go to Liverpool, especially when James was there, when Jurgen Klopp was there, the crowd played such a major part. It feels like that’s gone… I don’t think the fans are quite on board at the minute with what’s happening there.

“When we used to go there, I’d think, ‘Bloody hell, how are we going to get the ball?’, because they were on top of you. Teams seem to have a lot more possession and look a bit more comfortable than they ever have.”

(Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

Butt then claimed that visiting teams are a lot more confident going to Anfield now than they had been a few years ago.

He said: “The likes of Fulham five years ago are going to Anfield and they’re beaten before they even go up the steps. You see them looking across at James’ team and they’re going, ‘How am I going to compete with these?’

“When you lose that and you give them a little bit of hope, they’re thinking, ‘I’m playing at Anfield. I want these to come and buy me, so I’m going to go and show how good I am’. That transpires right through the team and you end up with results like you’re getting.”

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Anfield is no longer a venue that away teams dread

The verdicts from the ex-Man United duo mightn’t make for comfortable listening for Liverpool fans, but unfortunately it’s hard to disagree with either of them.

To win just four home games out of 12 in the league this year is nowhere near acceptable for the Reds, who’ve already dropped more points at Anfield inside the first month of this season than in the entirety of the title-winning 2019/20 campaign.

(Photo by Matt McNulty/Getty Images)

In the days which have followed the drab 0-0 stalemate against Fulham last weekend, there’s been plenty of social media discourse about the atmosphere at the stadium, with the sight of many spectators leaving well before the 90-minte mark being widely decried.

The relationship between fans and players is a two-way street – the team can absolutely feed off the energy from the stands, but it also requires a vibrant performance on the pitch to lift the home support and given them something to get behind.

A third-round Carabao Cup clash mightn’t stand out as a season-defining fixture, but with Liverpool tonight hosting a Tottenham Hotspur side who’ve yet to score this term, the Anfield faithful need to see a convincing display from their team and a resounding result to match.

The last thing Andoni Iraola need in his early months as the Reds’ head coach is for the home support to grumble and groan their way through matches in L4, and the only way to prevent that unenviable scenario is to once more make this wonderful stadium a place of dread for visiting teams.