Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp admitted before their FA Cup fourth-round exit to Brighton that if it wasn’t for his successful past at the club, he probably would have gotten the sack this season.
And following their shock 2-1 defeat to the Seagulls on Sunday, leftback Andy Robertson has heaped even more pressure on his boss, saying they are getting worse – defensively and on attack.
Robertson is dik of all the praatjies and after winning just one match in six outings since the start of the year, tells ITV Sport: “We need to start winning games. It’s easy to say, but harder to fix and it’s proven that way.
“This season has been nowhere near good enough, at the turn of the year we wanted a new start.
“But it’s not got off to that… it’s probably been worse…
🗣 "This season has been nowhere near good enough. At the turn of the year we wanted a new start but it's definitely not got off to that. We've probably been worse." - Andrew Robertson@LFC | @EmiratesFACup pic.twitter.com/dF0avI4tEf
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) January 29, 2023
“You can tell we aren’t as confident in front of goal and you can tell that defensively we are too open…
“The only way we pick up results is you have to score goals and you have to be able to keep clean sheets and we’re not managing that.
“We’re not managing to do that and we need to do it quickly.
“But we keep saying that and that doesn’t help the fans. I feel sorry for them, we aren’t putting a show on them at the moment.”
Down in ninth place on the log and out of both domestic cup competitions, which the Reds won last season, Klopp says: “I didn’t become a bad manager overnight. I was never as good as people probably said or not as bad as some people might think…”
Of whether he agrees with Robertson’s assessment, the German boss says: “It’s not 100 percent true but it’s not 100 percent wrong.
“Of course, we wanted a new start, that was clear after the World Cup. So far it hasn’t happened properly, that’s true.
“That means we have to keep working, there’s nothing else you can do.”
The Reds next face Wolves in the league on Saturday.
dailyvoice@inl.co.za