Souness expects Klopp had ‘hard words’ for Liverpool after lack of aggression

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Graeme Souness believes Jurgen Klopp almost certainly had ‘hard words’ for his Liverpool side vs West Ham. The Reds played a strange game.

Liverpool just about got past West Ham United on Saturday evening. Sadio Mané put them in front on 27 minutes and that’s how it finished – but the Reds rode their luck.

Pablo Fornals and Manuel Lanzini both should have scored for West Ham. Michail Antonio and Jarrod Bowen both got in behind, too. Liverpool, though, got away with them all, particularly thanks to defending from Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson.

But another big problem here was Liverpool struggling to put the game to bed. They failed to create many decent chances beyond Mané’s goal, allowing West Ham to remain just one goal behind.

According to Graeme Souness, it was down to a lack of aggression and he imagines Jurgen Klopp had some ‘hard words’ for Liverpool players.

“[West Ham] made Liverpool work hard for that victory today, they worried Liverpool at times,” he told Sky Sports.

“I imagine the manager would have had hard words with the Liverpool players at half-time because they just didn’t have that last yard of aggression in their game.”

Jurgen Klopp on his Liverpool side

Klopp described the Liverpool performance as ‘strange’ after the game. He’d mention decision making – the wrong finish, the wrong pass – and a lot of that, he says was from being rushed.

That goes a little against Souness’s observation of a lack of aggression. Instead, we think it was just a lack of clarity in their play. Liverpool just didn’t click together and we saw a lot of mistake near the West Ham goal.

We can’t say we saw any evidence of ‘hard words’, either – the second half performance wasn’t exactly filled with aggression. Instead, this was just a Liverpool display that lacked fluidity. Hopefully, just a one-off against a very good side.