Ryan Gravenberch felt that he and his Liverpool teammates didn’t deserve the booing which greeted the full-time whistle in the 1-1 draw against Chelsea at Anfield on Saturday.
The Dutch midfielder had given the Reds an early lead against a team who’d lost six consecutive Premier League matches before today, but the home side let their opponents back into the game and were relieved to get in at half-time on level terms.
With no further goals after the interval, there were boos at the final whistle as Arne Slot’s team dropped another two points, although it wasn’t quite as vociferous as the vitriolic reaction to Rio Ngumoha being substituted midway through the second half.
Gravenberch insisted that the full-time booing was unwarranted and called on Liverpool fans to get behind the team in the final two matches of this chastening Premier League season.
The midfielder told TNT Sports: “To be honest, we need them behind us. I think what they do is, OK we don’t win, but I think we don’t really deserve this, you know.
“I think fans have to be behind us for 90 minutes, because I think it was second half, when they went behind us, we pressed [Chelsea] really [well]. Hopefully in the next few games they won’t do the same [booing].”
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We agree with Gravenberch’s call for a united front for the games against Aston Villa and Brentford as the race for Champions League qualification goes to the wire, but his protestations about the full-time booing today mightn’t be well received.
Match-going Liverpool fans have been very patient throughout this nightmare of a season, even though they’ve made their displeasure known on a few occasions at Anfield, and any fan base would be volubly disgusted if their team had fallen so short of pre-season expectations.
The Dutchman was one of the Reds’ better performers this afternoon – in addition to his goal, he won five duels, completed two dribbles, made two tackles and executed two key passes (Sofascore).
LFC supporters will immediately get behind their team if they see maximum effort on the pitch, something which should be a given, so for them to be so vocal about registering their disgust is indicative of how awful the performances have been throughout the campaign.
It’s on Gravenberch and the players to show improvement in the next two matches, and hopefully we’ll once again see a demonstrable unity between the fans and the team at a time when the stakes remain sky-high for Liverpool.
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Gravenberch (and Slot) need to be shown Shankly’s ‘Chairman Mao’ speech after the 1971 FAC Final defeat. That tells everybody what playing for Liverpool is all about. The standards under Slot have fallen off a cliff. He needs to go.
The fans have been very supportive and I can hear them cheering on the team for the entire match. They even urged the keeper to despatch the ball quickly for counter attacks, a move that was so popular during klopp’s era featuring alisson and Salah. Slot totally destroyed everything and now, even the players adopt his wishy washy mentality. We are in a total mess now!
Why is complaining about the booing,if he wants the fans to stop that then the team should start delivering good results.The pressing which won us many games under Kloop has disappeared there is no identity in the team,no leadership.Let the fans pour out their grievance
Mate, slot built a Liverpool with the identity as draw/lose masters.
It’s very rare for Liverpool supporters to be booing at the end of the game at Anfield. In 50 years as a fan I haven’t seen it many times, but when it does happen it tells you that something is wrong at our football club. Liverpool supporters know their football club inside out, they don’t go booing the manager or the players for nothing. We’ve seen this before under Hodgson and Rodgers. The reason behind it is because the supporters know the club is heading in the wrong direction, decline.
The relationship between supporters and slot is now broken, beyond repair, the longer FSG do nothing and watch on as we decline further next season, the pressure needs to be on them to do the right thing for the football club. Slot needs to go.
I was at the game yesterday,and quite frankly Liverpool were abysmal. Apart from young Rio we were very poor,not one player showed,any leadership when Chelsea came back into the game, players turning their back on the keeper when,he was trying to get us moving quickly, while I’m saddened to hear Liverpool Fans booing I can totally understand it,we have no identity whatsoever.
There wasn’t any booing form the Kop although I understand there was some to be heard in the Main Stand. I’d suggest that it was for the bias and incompetence of the referee and two linesmen who, in the first half, didn’t know what offside was for one and the other inventing decisions all against Liverpool, once again, more than the poor performance we saw first half despite a great goal from us and a second half which improved because Jones stepped up into midfield.
That’s nice for Gravenberch, bless. However, Liverpool have been awful to watch all season. Can’t pass balls, goalkeeper errors, hardly any shots on target, midfield can’t run, and no fight. What does he expect? People are paying to watch that! And if we are playing Jones, Gomez, Kerkez, Frimpong, Mac Alister, and Salah, no wonder! Some of these are squad players only, and others are over the hill, lost skill or unabele to maintain fitness – all season.
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