Graeme Souness has insisted that the Liverpool players are to blame for their slow start to the season, but has suggested that Jurgen Klopp needs to freshen things up at the club.
The Reds are renowned for their high-intensity pressing and quick attack, but those key characteristics have been missing for most of the new campaign.
Jurgen Klopp’s midfield has come under heavy criticism in recent weeks and Souness believes that is the only area of the pitch that is letting the team down at the moment.
“You start by saying they have some fabulous players there, they really do,” the Reds legend said on talkSPORT.
“It seems like a lot of them aren’t into it, maybe because he’s using the same terminology when he talks to them, the training will be the same, they’ll be staying in the same hotels, doing everything that has brought them. success in recent years.
“It just seems like they lack the energy they need to play the kind of football they want to play, which is in your face, the midfielder bullies the other midfielder and they are constantly in the lead.
“That is missing and it is something that they have to recover.
“You go back to the Napoli game and they were so far away, and they’ve never improved since then, really.
“The players are in one of the great football clubs in the world, they are lucky to be there and they have performed very well in their recent history, but they are very short at the moment.
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“First you have to look at yourself and ask yourself what is the difference between this year and the previous five or six years.
“When they were at their best, they had Jordan Henderson, Georginio Wijnaldum and James Milner, not three terribly technically gifted players in midfield, but they just outplayed the opposition.
“To be successful, these players had to do it all the time and if you’re short a half yard, you end up going back. So maybe that’s a missing thing, maybe it’s a real fact of the Liverpool midfield that they don’t have that anymore.
“Thiago is a wonderful little footballer, but he can’t do that, that’s not his game. His game is witty and cute in passing. In general, his midfield is not doing it anymore.”
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Curtis Jones and Naby Keita all remain sidelined with injuries at the moment, while Thiago Alcantara and Jordan Henderson have all spent time on the treatment table this season.
Liverpool supporters called for the club to sign a new midfielder earlier this summer, but had to settle for the loan of Arthur Melo from Juventus on deadline day.
There are strong reports suggesting that Jude Bellingham will be targeted by the Anfield team at the end of the season and the teenager could be the signing to take the Reds to the next level.
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Despite all the talk about the players the club should sign and Klopp’s side currently “a mile away” from last season’s form, Souness remains confident his former club can turn things around.
“If you’re one of the top players, it doesn’t happen overnight, it’s not like a change, so it’s still in there somewhere. They are still a very good team”, continued the Scotsman.
“I remember when I was at the club, we lost at home to Man City on Boxing Day and we were 12th in the league, and people had written us off, the empire is falling apart, now it’s Man United’s turn… and then we ended up going on to win the title.
“I’m not saying this Liverpool team can do that… but I’d also like to point out that last January they were 14 points behind Man City and people were writing them off, and they ended up losing the league by one point. .
“So you don’t become a bad team overnight, but I’ll accept that they’re a mile away from where they’ve been for the last five or six years.”
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