Paul Ince: Liverpool lack leaders – their lack of courage cost them against Sevilla

When Liverpool concede a goal, they literally do not know how to react – and that needs sorting.

They got nervous against Sevilla in mid-week, and the things they were doing in the first half seemed to be just totally gone.

In those moments where you concede a goal, or you go behind, that’s when you need to turn to leaders. But there is no leadership in that Liverpool team, and it showed on Tuesday night.

The final goal was the most frustrating for me – what was Ragnar Klavan doing? He should have been heading that ball with everything he has.

If that was Gary Pallister or Paul McGrath, there’s no way that ball would’ve gone into the net.

When we’re talking about leaders, that was a prime example.

This is where leadership comes into play. It’s not all about talking or giving out orders, sometimes it’s about owning a situation like this and thinking “I don’t care how – I’m not conceding a goal in the dying minutes of the game”.

That’s why Liverpool concede a lot of goals. Individually, a lot of the players just don’t have the right mindset, particularly the defenders.

Liverpool’s lack of courage, and Klavan’s lack of will to put his head in where it hurts, alongside some of Moreno’s stupid decisions, are what cost them on Tuesday – and could cost them again this weekend.

They were complacent

I think that the Liverpool players got complacent, they saw they were 3-0 up, and thought they had it in the bag. Much like the Europa League final.

I appreciate that it’s hard to keep up that tempo from the first half, but you must be careful with that mindset, especially when your defence is like Liverpool’s.

The panic amongst the players led to apprehension within the fans.

That negative mindset needs to change if they want to win things.

There’s no togetherness, and it shows.