Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson struggled to explain the “mistakes” which littered his side’s chastening 3-0 Premier League defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday afternoon.
Despite enjoying an impressive individual campaign, Alisson has conceded more goals in 20 Premier League games this season (28) than he shipped across 36 top-flight outings last term (24).
In their third meeting with Wolves in 28 days, Liverpool shipped two goals in the opening 12 minutes. Joel Matip inadvertently diverted the ball into his own net before Craig Dawson, on his debut for Wolves, capitalised upon a bout of pinball at a set piece to blast the ball beyond Alisson,
“Sometimes in football you make mistakes and you get punished,” Liverpool’s goalkeeper lamented after the match. “We did that again and again. Two mistakes, two goals at the beginning of the game. We are making things hard for ourselves.”
Liverpool improved after the interval – outshooting Wolves 14 to five in the second half – but failed to find the net before Ruben Neves netted a third for the hosts at the end of a swift counterattack.
Alisson continued: “After that, we did a great second half. We could have done better on the third goal but it is a good moment from the opponent.
“I don’t know what we need to happen to us to wake up. We come here, say we have to believe in ourselves but we don’t act like that on the pitch or deserve that. Again, we have to put this behind us and take strength from ourselves and [our] families to bounce back.”
Jurgen Klopp struggled to explain his side’s poor start and Alisson was left looking for answers himself: “I think everyone believes they are capable of doing these things it is that you have to fight for that. A game of 90-plus minutes you have to do it consistently for the whole game. We showed today you can get punished for 15 minutes and that’s what happened to us. We have the same players who achieved so many great things at this club and we are not performing well. It’s difficult to say why.
“I’m not saying I don’t trust we can’t bounce back. I’m just so disappointed about tonight’s game. We have to keep working.”
Liverpool slumped to a third consecutive away defeat for the first time since 2012, leaving Alisson exasperated post-game: “Same as the other games, we have no consistency at all through the 90 minutes, focused and doing what we have to do on the pitch fighting. First 15 minutes we started the game not in a good way and we got punished for that. Conceding two goals, we are not in a good situation. They are confident, we tried, did a good second half but conceded again. Completely frustrated.
“Looks like in the game we went two steps behind then we make one step forward, we need to do more steps because of the results. Step forward was the second-half performance, two completely different sides first and second half. We have to take that for the next game and using the chances we have and stop conceding the silly goals.”
With a Merseyside derby and a Champions League tie against Real Madrid on the horizon, Alisson concluded: “We have to think of the next games. We are not in a position to think too much about the end of the season. We have to think about what we can do now and win the next game in front of us and that’s it.”
