Joel Matip Rues Liverpool's Defensive Shortcomings vs. Tottenham: 'It Cannot Go Like This'
Liverpool center back Joel Matip has called for serious improvement in Liverpool's defensive efforts following an embarrassing 4-1 defeat to Tottenham at Wembley on Sunday.
Liverpool fans are all too familiar with seeing defensive frailties in their side exposed nowadays, despite Jurgen Klopp's contentment with personnel at the back.
Against Tottenham on Sunday though, any reasonable doubt over Liverpool's defensive frailties were expelled, as every mistake was brutally punished by a rampant Tottenham outfit. A whole catalogue of individual errors from a visibly dejected Dejan Lovren lead to him being substituted within just 31 minutes of the game, at which point Liverpool were already 2-0 down.
Joe Gomez hardly steadied the ship in his place, as Liverpool again conceded to the same old set-piece errors that have plagued their season - Matip assisting Dele Alli for the third and Simon Mignolet failing to command his box for the fourth.
Following some heavy criticism, former Schalke man Matip has conceded that the Liverpool defense simply cant go on playing this way.
Speaking to Sky Sports (via the Metro) he said: "It cannot go like this. It cannot be that we concede that many goals away. I’m a defender and I should take care of this."
"We gave them the opportunity. It was not that they played the perfect ball with our mistakes. We have to take care of them and have to stop them."
Huddersfield travel to Anfield on Saturday and Matip is eager to put on a better defensive display. The Reds have extra time to prepare for the encounter with Manchester United's conquerors, considering their lack of distraction with mid-week fixtures.
While much talk remains over who will start in defense for the visit of the Terriers, Matip and the rest of the team must look ahead and rectify the flaw that have seen them pick up only two victories in their last 10 in all competitions.
"They were the better team. We only came back for a short time [at 2-1] and that is not enough to win against Tottenham," Matip added. "We’ll try to strike back next week."
