Moreno Better But Still Rivals Traore

14 Sep

Liverpool’s defensive problems cost them dearly once again last night as they started their Champions League campaign with a 2-2 draw against Sevilla at Anfield last night.

After falling behind to a Wissam Ben Yedder strike Liverpool turned the game around in a frenetic first half courtesy of goals from Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah, Firmino’s missed penalty proved costly as Sevilla equalised through Joaquin Correa to earn the Spanish side a valuable point.

Most of the post-match criticism was aimed at Dejan Lovren after the big Croatian endured a horrible night topped off with a disastrous missed clearance at the near post that gave Ben Yedder the opportunity to give Sevilla the early lead.

Lovren is far from convincing but I’d like to talk about Alberto Moreno, because he does not help Lovren with the way he plays and this could be having an effect on his own game as he has to cover Moreno on numerous occasions because the Spaniard likes to get forward so much.

You would imagine that this is how Klopp wants Moreno to play but as a left back, surely defending is the first thing on your mind.

Moreno has surprisingly played regularly since the start of the season, and in fairness to him, he has played better than usual, his attacking play has improved but his defending is still not good enough.

I read some players’ ratings from some websites after the game last night and I was amazed how highly Moreno was rated in some of them.

Yes, Moreno played well going forward last night, and was the architect in Liverpool’s equalising goal, but he is still not good enough defending and was caught sleeping at the back post as Ben Yedder peeled off him to score after Lovren’s mistake.

Moreno twice went in recklessly for challenges in the second half when on a yellow card and he really should have been sent off.

James Milner has fell out of favour this season after doing a decent job at left back for most of last season and he certainly defended better than Moreno.

Andy Robertson looks the pick of the left back options for Klopp, but strangely he’s only played one game in which he was arguably Liverpool’s best player.

Personally I cringe every time I see Moreno selected for Liverpool and I’m sorry to say this, but I’d put him the same category as Djimi Traore as Liverpool’s worst left back.

I honestly hope Moreno improves but I think he’s had plenty of opportunities, and I think he has all the attributes to be a great left back, but unfortunately he doesn’t have the brains.

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