‘No structure… nowhere near good enough… yards off it’: Andy Robertson’s startling admission about Liverpool team-mates – and the new bad trait they’ve only shown ‘twice in nine seasons’

Andy Robertson has harshly assessed Liverpool’s performance against Brentford and suggested they were ‘losing the battle’ at times.

The defender admits the Reds abandoned their structure, let the Bees off the hook and deserved to lose.

Liverpool fell 3-2 to Brentford in London on Saturday night to suffer their fourth straight league defeat, leaving them sixth in the Premier League and below Manchester United.

Their form is turning into a crisis, with tough matches against Crystal Palace, Aston Villa, Real Madrid and Manchester City before the next international break.

Robertson, who came on as a substitute in the second half, told LFC TV: ‘We didn’t do a good enough job off the ball. I thought we created some minutes in the first half, kept the ball pretty well.

‘But you can’t come to Brentford and expect to play them on the field because they will always be ready to fight.

Liverpool were at best second-placed on Saturday night and suffered a fourth consecutive defeat in the league.

‘When it comes to set pieces, they will always be ready to put bodies in the penalty area, pass balls to the back, take second balls. You know what’s coming here. They’re always the same, and they’re very good at it.

‘It looked to me like we were only a meter away from this angle. They took too many second balls and then took possession from the back.

‘Our back line runs back to head the ball, no matter how difficult it is. We know how difficult and how good a team they are.

‘We worked on the long throw and everything and you conceded three long throw-ins in five minutes. The one you accept is one of them.

‘That’s not good enough, you’re playing into their hands and you face an uphill battle from there. I kept fighting but I couldn’t get anywhere near good enough.

‘You have to fight for control. No team, no one in the Premier League will say, “You go, you get the ball, we will try to defend.” Nobody does this.

They always have a game plan against us and against every team. All the managers in the Premier League are very talented, especially the teams that have had a full week to prepare. They would have a clear game plan and I think they played theirs perfectly.

‘We never played our own game. This makes the job very difficult. If you think you’re going to come up and suddenly they’re going to fall, we’re going to be in control and wait until they score. This never, ever happens.

Arne Slot cut a frustrated figure on the touchline as he watched his team collapse again

Liverpool were beaten within five minutes after failing to deal with a long throw, with Dango Ouattara converting the ball.

‘This is my ninth season, I think it’s only happened once or twice. If we wait for that, we’re in big trouble.

‘You must fight for this control, above all else you must fight. You have to fight for second balls, fight for first balls and try to get into the game. Then quality will come.

‘I felt like we didn’t grasp the game at all today. There were moments but not enough moments and they really put them under pressure.’

Liverpool were beaten within five minutes after failing to deal with one of Michael Kayode’s killer long throws, with Dango Ouattara putting the hosts ahead.

Kevin Schade doubled the lead in the 45th minute, but Milos Kerkez gave Liverpool a glimmer of hope with a goal in the fifth minute of extra time. This is quite controversial because only three people were added.

Igor Thiago converted a penalty on the hour to restore Brentford’s two-goal advantage and although Mohamed Salah’s half-volley set up a nervy finish, Arne Slot’s side could not find an equaliser.

Robertson continued: ‘We got to 2-1, which we probably didn’t really deserve. So you come in and say, ‘Okay, we have a chance here.’ We can get back to the game. ‘Good time to score in the first half.’

‘We came out in the second half and I thought they started the second half really well. They were the ones who won the set pieces and the corners.

Robertson says Liverpool lost control and failed to impose game plan on Gtech

He thinks Liverpool did not show enough fight and deserved to be defeated.

‘We didn’t progress after that. You just try and they get penalized, whether it’s in line, out of line, whatever.

‘But then you’re 3-1 down and it’s just about throwing bodies forward and it gets chaotic. There is never a structure that is not good.

‘We will score, okay? We try to push and almost score a goal in the end but to be honest if we had gotten a draw today it would probably have made us proud.

‘We must work harder. I am recovering better during training and matches. When you are at this football club people want results.

‘The only way to get through a difficult moment is to work harder, run a little more and take a little better care of yourself. That’s what we have to do.

‘The results in the last five or six games have not been good enough. We are the only ones who can save us from this situation. We know this.

‘There will be no rest from Wednesday. No time to regroup. We have games, games, games. Sometimes it can be a good thing when you get such a quick response so we can go again.

‘But we need to start playing better and start showing a lot more consistency in our game.’