Peter Schmeichel has now been discussing a weakness he’s spotted at Liverpool ahead of the Manchester City clash on Sunday.
Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool side welcome City to Anfield knowing they haven’t lost to their opponents at home in the league since 2003
It’s quite an astonishing record when you consider just how good Man City have been for the last decade or so.
But Anfield is a fortress, and keeping it that way once Klopp departs in the summer is part of the challenge for the next manager.
That being said, Peter Schmeichel has noticed one weakness with Klopp’s current Liverpool team, which might be exposed on Sunday.
The pundit was speaking on the ‘Planet Premier League’ podcast and said that Liverpool had become far too reliant on Alisson this season.
Although injured right now, Schmeichel thought the Liverpool keeper had been left in far too many one versus one situations this year.
And despite how well Virgil van Dijk is playing, Schmeichel didn’t think Liverpool could win the league unless something changed.
Peter Schmeichel says Liverpool have a big weakness in defence this season
Speaking on the podcast, the pundit cited the cup final against Chelsea as an indicator of how poor Liverpool’s defending had become.
He said: “Van Dijk is a fantastic defender but I don’t think Liverpool defends particularly well.
“I mean they’ve been very, very reliant on Alisson this season until he got injured.
“Alisson has proved himself again as one of the best goalkeepers in one versus one situations, but the number one versus one situations they actually leave their goalkeeper is for me, in order to win the Premier League, it’s too many.
“It’s too risky and if you go back to the cup final against Chelsea, the number of chances Chelsea had, you can’t argue that Liverpool are defending well, you just can’t.”
Stats tell the story
Whilst Jurgen Klopp has been missing a ton of players through injury this season, there is a difference in his side’s defending in comparison to both Arsenal and City.
Liverpool have allowed 33.78 expected goals against them this season in 27 games, in comparison to City allowing 25.70 xGa and Arsenal 22.12 xGa (understat).
So whilst some may think Schmeichel is slightly exaggerating a weakness in Liverpool’s defending, the stats do back him up.
