Klopp flop: Liverpool boss must take the flak for failing to beat Everton, insists Alan Stubbs

Alan Stubbs insists Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has only himself to blame for his side’s failure to beat Everton, and questions whether the German ‘gets’ the Merseyside derby.

The Kop boss elected to leave Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino on the bench at Anfield on Sunday afternoon, and was furious after his team was denied victory by Wayne Rooney’s late penalty.

Klopp felt the referee blundered by awarding the spot-kick after Dominic Calvert-Lewin was bundled over by Dejan Lovren, but Stubbs thinks the former Borussia Dortmund needs to focus more on his own part in his team’s inability to claim all three points.

Speaking to Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast, former Everton favourite Stubbs said: “ I would have been delighted when I saw Liverpool’s team yesterday. It’s not to say that it was a considerably weaker team, but when you don’t play your best players in a derby…

“A lot of Liverpool fans would have turned up to the game thinking, ‘what’s he doing’? This is a derby, it’s not just another game, and I think foreign coaches sometimes don’t get it as much. He’s got only himself to blame really.

“I honestly think with those players [Coutinho and Firmino] on the pitch it would have been really hard for Everton to get a result.

“No disrespect to [Dominic] Solanke but, if you put Coutinho up there, as a defender you’re thinking, ‘oh, no’. The movement is completely different, the link-up play is different, the speed is different.

“Klopp has got to hold his hands up, and I think he did that after the game. When he was questioned about his team selection he said, ‘I appreciate that, that’s my department, I’ll take it [the criticism] if that’s the case’, but he certainly looked a frustrated man.

“And he’s got only himself to blame.”