Tuesday, 23rd September, 2014



Ex-Portsmouth striker Steve Claridge has rubbished Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers' reason for his side's poor start to the season.

Liverpool have lost three of their opening five Premier League games and appeared in lacklustre form, with the club's defence coming in for severe criticism.



Rodgers has pointed to a number of new players having been signed as the reason for Liverpool's poor start. But for Claridge, one look at Southampton, who were forced to replace Calum Chambers, Rickie Lambert, Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren and Luke Shaw, yet sit second in the league, gives the lie to Rodgers' claims.

"These are seasoned pros. They are playing in their right positions. All this about you come into a football club and three out of the four [defenders] are new…if you're playing right-back and you're a right-back, what's the difference between playing right-back for Liverpool and right-back for your previous club?" Claridge told BBC Radio 5 live, addressing the new defenders in the Reds' backline.

 


"The problem has been a lot of the time that they've gone from a three to a four, people swap, they've changed, the people in front of them have swapped and changed, the system has changed. [Steven] Gerrard comes and gets it off the middle two and comes behind them, and I'm not quite sure how that works", the former striker continued.

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"They are trying to control the game, trying to control possession and they are not now.

"The big two are missing from last year, [Daniel] Sturridge and [Luis Suarez] are a huge miss, and I’m taking that into account. But I don’t buy that [about too many new players].

"If you go down the road to Southampton no one's making excuses that they've got all the new players", Claridge concluded.

Southampton have lost just one game this season, that defeat coming away at Liverpool in a game which saw the Saints consider themselves unlucky to have left Anfield without even a point.

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