Jurgen Klopp left wondering if Liverpool’s mentality monstrosity is a one-off or something worse

Jurgen Klopp had already branded Ollie Watkins “undefendable” when he identified the element he found indefensible, and it was not merely conceding seven goals. The mentality monsters’ mentality had let them down. There were challenges, he admitted, when Aston Villa “wanted it more.”

“I saw it and I didn’t like it,” said the Liverpool manager. It was a restrained reaction from a man who established a reputation for touchline melodramatics. Yet Klopp was as understated in calling Liverpool’s heaviest loss for 57 years and the first time since 1953 the reigning champions have conceded seven “a strange scoreline” as Virgil van Dijk was in saying: “We weren’t 100 per cent at it.”

Villa were. Watkins’ perfect hat-trick came in a perfect storm for Liverpool: three deflections and three key absentees were allied with an incorrect attitude and inspired opponents. “It looked like we lost the plot after it went to 1-0,” said Klopp, which was rendered all the more damning as that first goal was gifted and it meant Liverpool mislaid the plot after four minutes.

It was the kind of collective disaster where individuals stood out, a failure of personnel and – unusually for Klopp - philosophy. “These boys are very self-critical and they know everyone has his hand in this result,” Klopp said. His goalkeeper had a foot in it: Adrian’s stray pass led to Watkins’ opener. Liverpool won every league game the Spaniard played in last season, but his errors cost them in the Champions League and the FA Cup. This time a blunder set the tone. Yet with Alisson out for at least four weeks, and maybe six, Klopp had to put up a better defence of the Spaniard than his back four mustered. “Our goalie was not the problem,” he said. “The first goal was not good but I don’t think he had anything to do with the other goals. We didn’t help him tonight.”  

A second-string goalkeeper was left exposed by what was, for most of last season, a first-class defence. For Trent Alexander-Arnold, it was a throwback to his earlier days when his defensive deficiencies were occasionally highlighted. The right-back as playmaker was tortured by a different sort of playmaker in Jack Grealish; “What a player,” Klopp enthused.

Joe Gomez remains a conundrum, the Rolls-Royce who can look a Robin Reliant.  When he is bad, he is really bad. Tactical substitutions of centre-backs are rare, but Gomez was hauled off at half-time in July’s 4-0 thrashing at Manchester City. He lasted an hour this time. The right half of Liverpool’s defence was all wrong.

The left half was not much better. Van Dijk was nutmegged by Gomez, booked for fouling Ross Barkley and deflected John McGinn’s shot in; it is the sort of hat-trick he rarely registers.

But the other defensive issues came further forward. Lacking the press and lacking pressure further forward, they refuted another of Klopp’s catchphrases. “Our identity is intensity”? Not this time. Those three deflections could go in because, Klopp admitted, they were “about 50 percent blocks.” Shorn of intensity, Villa could regain the ball and spy the wide open spaces behind Klopp’s errant defence.

A high defensive line can be hazardous and Liverpool’s has got higher. They had been rescued by Alisson when Alexandre Lacazette broke clear on Monday. Adrian is an altogether less reassuring sight and perhaps it underlined the importance of a brilliant goalkeeper when a brand of football affords opponents clear chances.

“We have to take risks and that is absolutely normal but we have to protect the risks and we didn’t do that tonight,” Klopp said. The midfield failed to protect those risks but if it was a freakish scoreline, it was a reminder that when gegenpressing goes wrong, it goes horribly wrong.

Klopp’s career illustrates the rewards high-energy, high-pressing football can bring. The risk involves embarrassment. Think of “the Alpine Klopp” Ralph Hasenhuttl’s Southampton and a 9-0 defeat to Leicester and 5-2 thrashing by Tottenham. Klopp’s Liverpool have gone down 4-0 to Manchester City, 3-0 to a Watford side who would be relegated and now 7-2 to a Villa team who almost were demoted during a year when, after Bayern Munich, they arguably rank as Europe’s outstanding side. Their latest reverse may be an anomaly in a season when they retain the title or a sign standards are slipping.

“Is it a one-off?” Klopp wondered. “I would like to think so but the proof of that will be in the next couple of weeks or months. A game like that should not happen, 100 per cent.” But on the ground where Liverpool showed their winning mentality with a seminal comeback last year, it became a mentality monstrosity for Klopp.