“Shameful.”
Roy Keane wasn’t impressed with Roma’s defensive efforts against Liverpool on Tuesday night. The Serie A side suffered a 5-2 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield and were trailing by five goals at one point.
Jurgen Klopp’s side produced an excellent performance, particularly their three forwards – Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane – and ruthlessly exposed the opposition’s weaknesses. However, the Italians played right into Liverpool’s hands.
They deployed a back three with wing-backs and were torn asunder by Liverpool’s three forwards. Klopp’s team just continued to play long passes into wide areas, and Roma’s rather slow central defenders were run ragged.
"If I played like some of those defenders last night I think I would consider retiring from football" 😂
Roy Keane on the Roma defence against Liverpool! pic.twitter.com/t4w6o81RJK
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) April 25, 2018
Rio Ferdinand pinned the blame for the team’s somewhat reckless tactics on their manager, Eusebio Di Francesco. But his former teammate has directed his criticism towards the players. Keane has said that if he had played as poorly as the defenders did, he would consider retirement.
“The Roma players gave up,” the former Manchester United captain said on ITV’s Champions League highlights show.
“After about an hour they downed tools. If I played like some of their defenders did in that game last night, I would consider retiring from football. I really would. Shameful. The fact is, they scored two late goals that obviously covered the cracks a little bit. Again, we can slag Roma off but you still need to take advantage of that and Liverpool did and punished them, and rightly so.”
Keane also spoke about who Liverpool would prefer to face in the final. Bayern Munich trail Real Madrid 2-1 after Wednesday night’s semi-final.
Who would Roy Keane want to face out of Bayern and Real Madrid if Liverpool got to the final? pic.twitter.com/2EP11Pg7Uu
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) April 25, 2018
