Liverpool manager, Jurgen Klopp, has admitted Alisson Becker’s errors cost the team in their crunch clash with Manchester City.
However, he has backed Alisson to bounce back from the horror show at Anfield on Sunday.
Alisson was at fault twice, as City won 4-1, which all-but-ends the Reds’ hopes of retaining their Premier League crown.
In a tight game, the Brazilian’s poor clearance allowed Phil Foden to set up Ilkay Gundogan to give the visitors a 2-1 lead, 17 minutes from time.
And just three minutes later he was culpable again, gifting the ball to Bernardo Silva, who fed Raheem Sterling for City’s third goal.
Foden himself rounded of the scoring, his powerful angled shot catching Alisson by surprise, to condemn Liverpool to their heaviest home league defeat since October 2005.
On Alisson, Klopp said: “I spoke to him a few seconds ago. He’s obviously very disappointed. He was like ‘not today, not today’. I said to him ‘that’s the problem with mistakes, you cannot decide when you make them, the only thing you can do is learn from them’
“That’s what he will do and he will make sure it never happens to him again. Tonight it was decisive, but that’s OK. He saved our lives I don’t know how often, and he’s absolutely a world-class goalie.
“Tonight some things went a little bit wrong and we have to take that.”
Asked specifically what he had said to Alisson, Klopp replied: “I said to him ‘we have stands, you can shoot the ball there!’
“Look, it’s a mistake, but different things came together. We didn’t offer exactly the right things. In the first half, Ali played exceptional football and was really calm on the ball, passed it in small spaces, exactly what we wanted him to do.
“Then in the beginning of the second half he didn’t do that. He didn’t see the offers because we didn’t make them in the right way, and then the problem is that he doesn’t shoot the ball somewhere far away from the danger spots.
“He knows that. I can’t help him through the night. We all have nights like this, and tomorrow he will be OK again.”
