'Absolutely useless': Gary Neville reveals who to blame for latest Liverpool loss in scathing criticism

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Evening Standard

·5 octobre 2025

'Absolutely useless': Gary Neville reveals who to blame for latest Liverpool loss in scathing criticism

Manchester United legend takes aim at Reds stars after Chelsea inflict their third defeat in a single week

A scathing Gary Neville has slammed Liverpool’s attacking performance in the late stages of their defeat by Chelsea as “absolutely useless”.

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The defending Premier League champions suffered their third loss in a week across all competitions on Saturday evening after Estevao Willian came off the bench to net a dramatic last-gasp goal that sealed a hard-fought 2-1 victory for the injury-plagued hosts at Stamford Bridge.

It was the latest blow and below-par performance in a painful seven days for out-of-sorts Liverpool, who also conceded a stoppage-time winner at Crystal Palace last weekend before slumping to a shock 1-0 defeat away at Galatasaray in the Champions League.

There was once again much focus on the Reds’ poor defensive display against Chelsea as they continued to leak goals, with an injury to Ibrahima Konate only adding to their growing woes at the back, where first-choice goalkeeper Alisson Becker is already missing for six weeks with a hamstring injury and Giovanni Leoni now having undergone surgery on an anterior cruciate ligament tear, further compounding the failure to complete a deal for Marc Guehi on transfer deadline day.

However, Neville has now taken aim at their flat attacking performance as they totally failed to capitalise on the short-lived momentum generated by Cody Gakpo’s 63rd-minute equaliser against Chelsea that cancelled out a stunning first-half strike from man of the match Moises Caicedo.

"I thought after they scored, I was really disappointed in their level of performance," the Manchester United legend and Sky Sports pundit said on the latest edition of the Gary Neville Podcast.

"A lot has been made of Liverpool's defensive work and rightly so, but that's not why they've lost this game. They've lost this game because in the last 15-20 minutes, their creative players, their players in the final half of the pitch, the midfield players and the forwards were absolutely useless.

"They were giving the ball away like you wouldn't believe. Gakpo, [Mohamed] Salah, the wastage. [Florian] Wirtz, not knowing how to get into a game in the last 15 minutes when it was there for the taking and just sort of ended up almost marking Caicedo. I thought their front players were terrible.”

Neville went on to criticise an out-of-form Salah’s decision-making and finishing against Chelsea, taking particular aim at £116million summer signing Wirtz for being “immature in his knowledge of how to play the game” and labelling his play as “predictable” and “disappointing” after replacing the struggling Conor Bradley at half-time.

He added: “They'll sort it out but the full-backs have to step up, Wirtz has to start playing and understanding how he's going to sort of connect with [Alexander] Isak and the other forwards in the team.”