Chris Sutton fears Liverpool are starting to run out of energy in the home stretch of the season, but believes Jurgen Klopp must ‘go for broke’ against Atalanta in the Europa League.
Their title hopes took another massive dent as they suffered a shock 1-0 loss to Crystal Palace at Anfield – their first league defeat at home in 29 matches.
It is their second defeat in a row, and the fourth time in their last six outings in all competitions that they have failed to win. They next face Atalanta in the Europa League quarter-finals, needing to overturn a 3-0 deficit in Italy from the first-leg.
Speaking on the It’s All Kicking Off podcast, Chris Sutton and Mail Sport’s football editor Ian Ladyman, said that Liverpool had ‘run out of energy’ at the wrong time and have been hungover since their FA Cup exit to rivals Manchester United last month.
Former Blackburn, Norwich and Chelsea striker, Sutton said: ‘I don’t know what was the biggest shock yesterday, but I didn’t see Palace going to Anfield and rolling Liverpool over. I didn’t see that in the script at all. That was a shock.
‘It seems like Liverpool, just at the wrong time, are running out of energy. Mohamed Salah, since he’s come back from injury, doesn’t seem the same.
‘I wonder whether there’s a knock-on effect. Again, it’s very difficult to say but it looks like there’s a hangover from the defeat against Atalanta who absolutely spanked Liverpool at Anfield on Thursday evening.
‘It looked like there was a hangover from that, poor first half performance, and they huffed and they puffed and they’ve (n found away this season, but listening to Klopp afterwards, that’s as, and you’ll know this better than anybody, normally in press conferences or when he’s talking to the media, he’s quite spiky when his team loses.
‘It sounded like he was like so flat and dejected and it’s going to be a horrible end to the season for Liverpool if they don’t pick up immediately.’
Ladyman added: ‘So yesterday’s result was, you think was a hangover from the defeat to Atalanta, which in itself was a hangover from the draw against Manchester United in the league, which in itself was a hangover from the FA Cup defeat to Manchester United. So there you go, that’s a lot of hangovers.’
Liverpool next face Atalanta in the Europa League on Thursday night as they look to overturn a 3-0 deficit in Italy.
They then start off a tricky looking run of three consecutive away Premier League fixtures starting with Fulham on Sunday, the Merseyside Derby on April 24 and West Ham on April 27.
Liverpool are currently two points behind Manchester City in the Premier League, but play twice before Pep Guardiola’s side are next in league action.
Ladyman asked Sutton whether Liverpool should play an under-strength team in the Europa League and focus their attentions on Fulham at Craven Cottage.
Sutton replied: ‘I think the nature of Jurgen Klopp, he’ll go strong. He has to because he might as well try and win everything. And being involved in so many competitions maybe has caught up with Liverpool.
‘But the fact that they lost against Palace, had they beaten Palace, then maybe he could have thought along those lines, we’ll go for the Premier League, because we’re still in command of that. But now he’s got to go for broke.’
Ladyman debated this as he suggested: ‘I would go reserves at Atlanta and then hope that his first team can make a statement performance away at Fulham next weekend because you’ve got to realize if they beat Fulham, they go ahead of City again.
‘They go ahead of City. Psychologically, that could just give them a foothold.’
Liverpool missed a host of chances against Crystal Palace on Sunday, with the likes of Darwin Nunez, Salah, Jota and Curtis Jones all misfiring.
Ladyman, said that despite his ‘admiration and vague obsession with Nunez’ believes that Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp is making ‘excuses’ for him.
He said: ‘The chance he missed yesterday, a ball on the bounce on the six yard line, hooked it towards goal straight at the Crystal Palace goalkeeper, Dean Henderson.
‘Jurgen Klopp says afterwards, what could Darwin do with his chance? In other words, he couldn’t have done any better. Yes, he could. He could have aimed it towards the corner of the goal. And I just wonder and we’ve said it before when the penny is going to drop with Nunez, you’ve just got to be cuter at times.’
Sutton added: ‘Nunez is not lethal. He’s a handful, but he’s not lethal. I read this stat last night about him – Darwin Nunez has the worst big chance conversion rate across Europe’s top five leagues. And you know, you think about that, you think of the standard of Manchester City, the standards that Arsenal have set. You want to win a Premier League, you’ve got to take those opportunities.
