Rodgers criticises lazy Liverpool

Since his appointment in the summer, Brendan Rodgers seems to have praised and defended his team at any opportunity. Bearing this in mind, there were several surprised faces when he hit out at the squad that lost to Udinese on Thursday evening, stating that there was far too much laziness and the loss of concentration was a concern.

Despite seemingly being in complete control of the encounter, the Reds slipped to a shock 3-2 victory after the Italian outfit scored three second half goals. In typical Rodgers-style, the Liverpool performance was full of fluid football and the team incredibly made four times as many passes as their opponents. Still, this lack of penetration was once again a big worry and the fact that this was the third successive defeat at Anfield certainly hasn’t gone down with supporters.

Following on from the defeat, the former Swansea boss was quick to put his finger on what he thought went wrong. He told the press, “We concede goals too easily. It’s an area we have to work on. We were very good in the first half but we lost concentration and became lazy and found ourselves 3-1 down. We injected some quality into the game in the last 15 minutes or so and got a goal back but we are just disappointed that after such a good first-half performance we have given away such poor goals. It is still very tight and there are some excellent teams in our group.”

In terms of the specifics, the Reds’ hopes of qualification have certainly been hit hard with the club now sitting 3rd in the Group A table. Admittedly, there is still a long way to go, but fixtures against Anzhi Makhachkala certainly aren’t going to be easy and there’s no doubt that progression hangs in the balance.