Stephen Warnock tore into Alisson after Liverpool were punished again in Wednesday's live Champions League coverage, calling it another soft goal and saying the keeper should have come for the ball. The criticism came after Archie Brown was left with the goal gaping at the far post and tapped in to make the finish look painfully simple.
The sequence began from a corner on the right that was played short before N'Golo Kante swung in the cross. Cody Gakpo's glancing header took the ball away from Alisson, and Brown was waiting unmarked at the far post to score. Warnock said there was no shout from the replay and called it a lack of concentration from the goalkeeper, while Ally McCoist took a slightly different view and said the problem was a lack of communication with Alisson.
That split matters because it changes where the blame sits. Warnock felt the keeper should either have claimed the ball or cleared the danger by taking out Gakpo, while McCoist argued the header off Gakpo was what left Brown with the simplest of tasks. In live coverage of nine Champions League games, the moment stood out because it was not a sweeping tactical problem but a single breakdown that opened the door for Fenerbahce to equalise again.
The timing also gave the criticism extra weight. More from Warnock was due on MOTD: Uefa Champions League at 22:40 BST on One and the Sport website and app, giving viewers a second chance to hear how he assessed the error. Liverpool responded by sending on Milos Kerkez for Kostas Tsimikas after the goal, but the bigger question left hanging is whether this was a goalkeeper mistake, a communication failure, or both.
