EPL: Tears not acceptable - Carragher
Liverpool's players after their defensive
collapse at Crystal Palace, insisting their
performance was "not acceptable" for a team
with title aspirations.
Brendan Rodgers' side led 3-0 at Crystal
Palace with 12 minutes to go and looked set
to go three points clear of Manchester City at
the top of the Premier League - but Damien
Delaney pulled one back and Dwight Gayle hit
a late brace as the home side completed a
stunning comeback.
Former centre-back Carragher, who retired
last summer after spending his entire career
at Anfield, feels Liverpool have shown
vulnerability in the back four all season.
And as Luis Suarez left the pitch in tears after
the final whistle, he said the players only have
themselves to blame.
"You look at Suarez and you think you feel
sorry for him, but you can't feel sorry for
Liverpool in that situation," he told Monday
Night Football.
"That is not acceptable, for all the plaudits
Liverpool have had in the last few months -
and deservedly so as they have been the most
outstanding team in the Premier League to
watch and excited us all.
"But that has been their Achilles' heel all
season. Even when they've been winning
games it's been 4-3 or 6-3 or 3-2. We always
felt the defence would come back and haunt
them with the goals they've conceded.
"Tonight's the night, not so much the back
four but as a team defensively the goals
conceded have come back to haunt them.
"The strikers normally get them out of jail and
you could have argued if it had been 3-2
tonight and they'd hung on then the strikers -
Sturridge and Suarez - would have got them
out of jail again.
"You can't keep conceding goals at this level
and expect to win big trophies. It's not
acceptable the way they've finished that game
in the last 20 minutes.
"It's a bit of a freak, of course it is, but we've
been saying for months now that the defensive
side of this team is not up to scratch and is
not at the level of Premier League
champions."
Carragher says Rodgers' preferred central
defensive pairing of Mamadou Sakho and
Martin Skrtel lack leadership skills - and there
was evidence of it in the 3-2 win over Norwich
last month.
And he believes Liverpool paid the price for
trying to chase down Manchester City's
superior goal difference instead of tightening
up at the back.
"Goal difference could become a factor, so
you're thinking 'get to 3-0 and now try to get
goals and move forward'," Carragher added.
"Liverpool were throwing men forward and
people were staying up front and maybe
weren't coming back, but the back four and the
defensive side of this team have shown they
can't cope with the pressure.
"When they come under pressure, we saw
them at Norwich dropping back into the box.
Sakho and Skrtel don't communicate enough
and they're not pushing out. They're good
players, but they're not leaders.
"They need people out there pushing people
out. You can't keep dropping back against
these teams, inviting pressure and think you'll
get away with it.
"We mentioned a couple of weeks ago the
Norwich game and they got out of jail. We
mentioned on the day it could have easily
been 3-3.
"They basically haven't learned the lesson of
that Norwich game. You think of the City game
when they let people back into the game as
well, the 3-2 situation, and it just continuously
goes on and on for the last few months.
"They've been getting away with it. Tonight is
the night that they haven't got away with it
and they've probably lost the league title."
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