Micah Richards and Jamie Carragher pointed to failures from Virgil van Dijk, Alisson and Alexis Mac Allister as the reason for Liverpool conceding their first goal against Brighton.
Simon Adingra put the Seagulls ahead after 20 minutes at the AMEX Stadium, with the hosts’ pressing leaving Jurgen Klopp ‘s side all at sea. After an attack from Brighton broke down, Alisson carried the ball out of his box, before passing it to Van Dijk.
Alexander-Arnold had moved up into midfield, with his keeper instead occupying the space on the right side of defence. Van Dijk then opted to play a pass to Mac Allister, but the midfielder was swarmed on by three Brighton attackers.
The Argentine lost the ball, with Adingra bursting forward before hitting a shot into the bottom corner, with Alisson unable to get across to make a save. That led to Richards singling out the three stars for being at fault.
“In this position here, you see Trent going into midfield and Alisson almost creates that back four and they are trying to get the Brighton strikers to come onto them,” the former Manchester City star told Sky Sports.
“Like Brighton have done with the Liverpool players, but he doesn’t want the ball there. Then, Alisson is out of position because he has made that four in the defence.”
Former Arsenal star Theo Walcott laid the blame for the goal at Van Dijk’s door though. He criticised the Dutchman’s decision to play the ball to Mac Allister when he could see the midfielder was surrounded.
He said: “What I like about this goal is they are all waiting for the trap, they are trying to trap Liverpool. They have all got triggers for certain areas of the pitch. But, as a player, I have been in that position where Mac Allister is and it’s a horrible ball to deal with and I feel as though Van Dijk recognised that he does not want it.”
Meanwhile, Reds legend Carragher raised concerns over Mac Allister’s defensive attributes. The former Liverpool skipper praised Brighton for their pressing, but insisted it was a sloppy goal from the visitors’ point of view.
He said: “They have paid the penalty. We have talked about Mac Allister having problems defensively, but it’s brilliant from Brighton. It’s a sloppy pass from Virgil Van Dijk and does the goalkeeper react quick enough? Was he expecting that? He takes the shot early, but he should do better, Alisson.”
Liverpool did get themselves back into the game when Mohamed Salah equalised five minutes before half-time as he fired in from Darwin Nunez’s squared pass. And the Egyptian put Klopp’s side ahead on the stroke of half-time by scoring a penalty, but Lewis Dunk was able to rescue a point for his side late on.
