Liverpool need to offer better protection for goalkeeper Alisson Becker, after he conceded another four yesterday.
Alisson played his first 90 minutes of pre-season on Wednesday, as the Reds succumbed to a 4-3 loss against Bayern Munich. Pundits such as Luis Garcia have already expressed their worry at seeing goals given up so readily once again.
And covering the game for LFCTV, Liverpool Women’s striker Natasha Dowie said Liverpool need to do better by their goalkeeper.
“I feel sorry for Alisson. You know that he can save us in games but we need to do more to protect him,” Dowie said.
“You can’t rely on him as much as we have done over the last year. Time after time he is saving us in games and the defenders need to help him out a bit more.”
Liverpool leaving Ali in the lurch
After Alisson’s super-human efforts last season, he was probably hoping for a return to some normality in 2023/24.
But the early signs of that are not good at all. In fact, it’s possible that Liverpool actually now look even more open.
Quite why that is is open to some debate. However, the glaring reason would seemingly be the decision to persist with Trent Alexander-Arnold in a hybrid right-back/midfield role.
The benefits of doing this are abundantly clear. Trent is as gifted a passer of the ball as the Premier League has ever seen. It will pay to get him on the ball as much and as often as possible,
But at the same time, it’s also clear that Liverpool may not have the personnel to appropriately cover his defensive responsibilities.
Ibrahima Konate is certainly capable of doing so. It’s a lot to ask of the Frenchman to do it for 90 minutes every single game, though. And when Konate drops out of the side – as he did yesterday – then Joel Matip doesn’t have the skillset to step up to those demands.
As a result, Jurgen Klopp is going to have to figure something else out. Dowie is bang on, we absolutely can’t be relying on Alisson as much as we have. The £67m man is capable of bailing us out, but he’s bound to be beaten eventually. Time to tighten up.
