Rodgers: No defence coach needed at Liverpool

Brendan Rodgers: Has spent around £66m on goalkeepers and defenders

Brendan Rodgers insists that Liverpool do not need a defensive coach despite shipping 19 goals in all competitions this season.

The Reds conceded three more goals on Wednesday night against Real Madrid with two of those goals caused by sloppy defending.

Rodgers has spent around £66m on goalkeeping and defensive options since his arrival at Anfield but none of those players could be described as unqualified successes.

He blames their defensive problems largely on a lack of coaching time this season - ignoring the fact that Liverpool's shambolic defending was a problem last season when they had a week on the training ground between matches.

"A large number of the goals we’ve conceded have been soft. There hasn’t been a corner with a clever move that has beaten us," Rodgers told the Liverpool Echo.

"It’s been a simple ball into the box and we haven’t defended it through either the first contact or by letting people come across us.

"The second and third goals against Real were disappointing. That’s seven, arguably eight, goals we’ve conceded from dead balls so far.

"We need to be more competitive and more aggressive in those situations. They are scrappy goals we’re giving away and you can’t do that at this level.

“It’s not a case of needing to bring in another coach, a defensive coach or anything like that.

"I wouldn’t go down that route. The bottom line is our team is based on balance and at times it’s been poor. There is a collective responsibility to defend better and that’s what we have to do.

"Our problem and the issue we have which we need to find the solution for is our lack of coaching time. Take this week, we played Wednesday night, the players physically recover on Thursday, and that leaves us with only a short period of time on the training field before we’ve got the game on Saturday.

"Over the last 18 months we have seen the developments of this team given coaching time. It’s really not rocket science.

"The introduction of all our new players and having limited coaching time has caused us issues. We need to be better."

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