Manchester United legend Paul Scholes insists a poor showing from one Liverpool star in the League Cup final against Newcastle “messed up” their whole performance.
The Reds have had a brilliant season in the Premier League with Arne Slot’s side currently top of the Premier League by 12 points with nine matches to play.
But Liverpool have had a terrible week with Paris Saint-Germain dumping them out of the Champions League in the last 16, before Newcastle beat them 2-1 in the League Cup final on Sunday.
Liverpool were second best for most of the game against the Magpies with Federico Chiesa getting a consolation in second-half injury time after Dan Burn and Alexander Isak had given the Geordies a comfortable lead.
Slot was criticised for his substitutions by Gary Neville during the match but Scholes reckons Mac Allister having a bad game meant the whole Liverpool engine struggled.
Scholes said on The Overlap: “You have to be a little bit disappointed with the way Liverpool played, especially in the midfield area. I just think Newcastle overpowered them.
“I think Mac Allister is a really good player, he’s been really good for them this season, but it was just common sense for me.
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“He kept taking too many touches. When you’re playing against powerful people, it’s the last thing you do; you’ve got to take one or two touches, don’t let anyone near you.
“It’s not something Mac Allister does, is it? And he’s the player I think gets Liverpool playing, almost like a Modric has been through the years.
“When he’s not quite right, I just think the whole thing’s messed up.”
Speaking about Mac Allister marking Burn for the Newcastle opener, Slot told a post-match press conference: “Again, credit to Newcastle. But I can explain. We play zonal so we have five players zonally close to our goal, so if the ball falls there it is always one of the five stronger players that are going to attack that ball. And we have three players that man-mark and Macca is one of them.
“Normally a player like Dan Burn or another one runs to the zone because normally… I think he’s an exception to that because I have never seen in my life a player from that far away heading a ball with so much force into the far corner.
“That is part of logic, that they either have to go far away from our zone, which 99 out of 100 times that will never lead to a goal, or they have to arrive in our zone and then it’s an equal battle, if you want to call it like this. So credit to him, I think he’s one of the few players that can score a goal from that distance with his head.”
Former Tottenham and Barcelona striker Gary Lineker insists “no disrespect” to Liverpool but he celebrated the Newcastle opener “like it was our team”.
Lineker said on the Rest Is Football podcast: “I was watching the game with all of my lads… and when Dan Burn headed [the opening goal] in all five of us leapt up in the air, shouting like that was our team.
“No disrespect to Liverpool… but they’ve won so much, and I think most neutrals with a heart wanted Newcastle to win.”