Liverpool 3-0 Southampton: Three match takeaways

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LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND – NOVEMBER 18: Virgil van Dijk of Southampton walks off the pitch after his side’s 0-3 defeat in the Premier League match between Liverpool and Southampton at Anfield on November 18, 2017 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images) /

Lack of fight from players is worrying

Having failed to gain a respectable points tally from their opening run of fixtures, Saints are going to need to scrap for points to get them away from trouble. There was no evidence that the players were willing to do that yesterday.

Liverpool strolled to victory and were free to choose which of their eight shots on target to score from. Saints wouldn’t even have an attempt on target throughout the 90 minutes.

It says a lot when players like Oriol Romeu are off colour; a warrior in the past season who would battle his way to supremacy in the middle of the park. Dusan Tadic lost the ball for Liverpool’s first goal, with poor attempts all round to win it back as Mohamed Salah was allowed acres of space to curl home. Even their third goal saw the whole Saints team ball-watching to allow Philippe Coutinho to score following Fraser Forster’s save.

Whatever has caused this attitude needs to be sorted quickly before the team find themselves deep in a battle for survival. Whether that is the increasingly likely change of manager, or a complete evaluation of the playing staff ahead of January, something has to change.