Steven Gerrard described Liverpool’s performance against Paris Saint-Germain as ‘toothless’ as the Premier League champions were beaten 2-0 at the Parc des Princes in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final tie.
The former Liverpool captain spoke on TNT Sports after the Reds conceded twice in Paris thanks to goals from Desire Doue and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia who secured a comfortable lead for the Champions League holders ahead of next week’s return leg.
Arne Slot switched up Liverpool’s tactics following their disappointing 4-0 loss to Manchester City last weekend and set the team up with three centre-backs as Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong played as wingbacks.
That formation allowed more bodies around the penalty area but stifled Liverpool’s attacking qualities and they finished the match without recording a single shot on target.
“PSG were more ruthless, certainly in the second half they had big chances… to go and kill the tie off,” Gerrard said in the post-match analysis.
“Liverpool getting out of here at 2-0 is okay, it’s not fantastic but if any place can make a tie of this next week, it’s Anfield.”
Fellow pundit, and another former Liverpool star, Steve McManaman was less enthused and explained how things could, and perhaps should, have been worse for Liverpool.
He explained: “It’s an easy game to analyse. Weirdly enough, PSG weren’t ruthless enough tonight. The chances they missed…
“Liverpool had Alisson to the rescue last year, if anything it was PSG not putting them to the sword today. I thought Liverpool were very lightweight up top. Not being ruthless enough, not taking shots on.
“It’s going to be difficult to turn this around, against this team. Marquinhos [PSG’s captain] has had the easiest game of the season, he’s hardly done anything today. It’s going to take a huge performance for Liverpool to turn this around next week.”
Yet, the most damning descripton came from Gerrard who described PSG’s performance as ‘total domination’ and blamed Liverpool’s lack of bite in the final third for the result.
“It’s going to be a real big ask is because PSG are so good,” he said. “It was total domination tonight, Liverpool’s tactics and gameplan worked for large periods of the game but they didn’t have anything up top. They were quite toothless and didn’t create anything.
“Over the course of 90 minutes Liverpool haven’t offered enough but what they’ve done is given themselves a small opportunity next week at Anfield.”
