Former Liverpool striker John Aldridge described the Reds’ performance against Fulham on Sunday as “abysmal” as they were beaten 3-2 at Craven Cottage.
The game started brightly for Arne Slot‘s men, as Alexis Mac Allister scored from distance after 14 minutes, but by half-time, the Reds were trailing 3-1 after goals from Fulham trio Ryan Sessegnon, Alex Iwobi and Rodrigo Muniz.
Luis Diaz emerged as a second-half substitute to halve the deficit but Liverpool could not find an equalizer, with Harvey Elliott coming closest as he crashed an effort off the crossbar.
Liverpool’s first-half performance was arguably the team’s worst of the season and it prompted strong criticism from 1988 title winner Aldridge.
“That defensively was abysmal,” Aldridge posted on X. “I can’t remember a Liverpool team that won the league in my days doing what I saw there today! We’ve imploded and the team thinks the job’s done [in the title race] maybe? I’m going now to watch the also-rans game on Sky (Manchester United vs Manchester City). We’re moaning but it could be a lot worse, folks.”
All three of the goals Liverpool conceded could have been avoided, with the first coming when Curtis Jones’ misdirected headed clearance fell straight into the path of Sessegnon, who lashed the ball past Caoimhin Kelleher.
Andy Robertson then made a series of mistakes for Iwobi to give Fulham the lead, before Virgil van Dijk was too weak in being nudged out of the way by Muniz before the Brazilian scored.
Slot bemoaned his side’s first-half performance, which ultimately sealed the Reds’ fate, despite an improved second-half display. “It’s not often we concede three goals let alone in one game or 15 minutes,” Slot told BBC’s Match of the Day. “We could have prevented it. We scored a good goal but apart from that the second half performance was much more what we’re like.
(Image: 2025 Liverpool FC)
“Conceding three goals like we did is not of the standards of Liverpool. We were creating chance after chance after chance [towards the end]. In the end we lacked time to make up for the three mistakes we made in the first half.”
Meanwhile, the Liverpool head coach defended star forward Mohamed Salah, who has now gone seven games without a goal from open play for the club.
The Egypt international has scored 32 goals this term, but his only goals in his last seven appearances came from the penalty spot against Southampton last month.
Slot said: “Maybe he (Salah) should see it as a compliment [that people are talking about his goal drought] because his numbers were not normal [when he was scoring]. The good thing about Mo is he knows what kind of player he is. Mo will show up again, I don’t worry about that.”
