Jamie Carragher insisted Liverpool boss Arne Slot got it ‘massively wrong’ against PSG in the Champions League – and hit out at one of their key players for a string of poor performances.
Liverpool were beaten 2-0 in the first leg of their quarter-final on Wednesday night, with Desire Doue and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia scoring for the holders.
PSG dominated throughout the match and could have enjoyed a wider margin of victory, while Liverpool failed to muster a shot on target.
The Reds had come into the match off the back of a 4-0 FA Cup defeat by Man City at the weekend, with under-pressure boss Slot responding by switching to a back five.
Speaking on CBS Golazo post-match, Carragher described the gulf between Liverpool and PSG as ‘startling’, comparing the Reds to a ‘lower division side’, and claimed Slot’s tactical switch had actually made his side more open.
He claimed the set-up exposed Liverpool’s ageing captain Virgil van Dijk, but highlighted the continued underperformance of Ibrahima Konate alongside him, labelling his performances this season as ‘awful’.
‘The manager tried something, but he got it massively wrong tactically about how he went about it.
‘It’s easy for me to say that after the event, that’s what we do, we are pundits, we speak after the game.
‘He went about it with the back five all wrong, they were actually more open with a back five than with a back four, because they went man-to-man all over the pitch, and the three centre-backs had to cover the entire width of the pitch.
‘Watching Virgil van Dijk tonight in the middle of a back three, normally, at a certain age, you think: “Middle of a back three is perfect for me, everyone is in position, you are getting protection from the back five”.
‘This was different. Defenders were jumping into midfield with no one to mark and Van Dijk, at 34, had to keep running across and he couldn’t do it.
‘People have criticised Van Dijk this season for his performances, and I think that’s harsh.
‘He plays every game, Konate next to him has been awful all season and was poor again tonight. He makes a mistake in every game, that’s not easy to play with that.
‘I think Van Dijk has been one of Liverpool’s best players, but tonight in this back three, I’ve never seen him so uncomfortable in a Liverpool shirt.
‘I think he’ll be pleading with Arne Slot to never play that system again, he found it so tough.
‘But it is not just Liverpool getting it wrong tactically. PSG were absolutely out of this world. It was like watching Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona.’
Carragher was then involved in an on-air spat with Peter Schmeichel, who had been watching pitchside at the Parc des Princes, after the legendary goalkeeper suggested the Reds had been defending in a compact way to combat PSG.
‘You are one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time Peter, but Liverpool weren’t compact tonight,’ Carragher said, leading to Schmeichel responding ‘Oh, so I shouldn’t do tactics?’
‘Oh Peter, leave it, honestly I’d just leave it. Peter the chances, they were ripped open. They weren’t compact, they were the opposite of that,’ Carragher continued.
Schmeichel replied: ‘You know, sitting here Jamie, I think you are perhaps more emotionally involved in this so I understand where you are. Sat here at the stadium it did not look like they were struggling too much when PSG had the ball in front of their box.
‘I agree with some of the analysis you did there on the two goals, but I actually think it helped them having that many players at the back. PSG they were hard, they play some football by the way.’
During the awkward exchange, the cameras panned to show Thierry Henry hiding between the screen as Carragher and Schmeichel continued their discussion.
After Carragher and Schmeichel agreed to start discussing PSG’s impressive performance, Henry emerged from behind the screen and joked ‘Can I come back?’.
Despite suffering a 2-0 defeat in the first leg, Slot claimed post-match that his side still have a chance in the tie ahead of the return fixture at Anfield on Tuesday.
The Dutchman, however, conceded his side had been in ‘survival mode’ for much of the match at the Parc des Princes.
‘We were in survival mode for large parts of the game but maybe also the period of the season we are in, we are in survival mode,’ Slot said post-match.
‘PSG was the better team but we didn’t give up and that is why we still have a chance. They kept us alive by not scoring a few open chances.
‘We tried many times to get them high, but they were able to play through us when we went man-to-man. I think that happened in the second half as well.
‘There were a few times with players in promising positions.’
Liverpool will be back in action on Saturday against Fulham in the Premier League, with the Reds battling to qualify for next season’s Champions League.