Alan Shearer took shots at Liverpool stars Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate following Liverpool’s 2-1 defeat at Brighton on Saturday, claiming the centre-back pairing were ‘absolutely bullied’ by veteran Seagulls striker Danny Welbeck.

Arne Slot’s men suffered a potential blow to their hopes of a top-five finish as they crashed to their 10th league loss of the season on the south coast, although they were helped later in the day after Chelsea lost at Everton, who are making their own charge for Champions League qualification.

Welbeck scored both goals at the Amex Stadium as he gave Van Dijkand Konatea tough outing, and while Shearer was full of praise for a player who he feels should have been in Thomas Tuchel’s latest England squad, he was particularly damning about the Liverpoolcentre-back pairing.

In his post-match analysis for theBBC’s Match of the Day, Shearer felt Liverpool’s defence was ‘all over the place’ in a game where they should have been brimming with confidence after their Champions League defeat of Galatasaray in midweek.

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The Newcastle legend said: “There were question marks about the opposition in Galatasaray, who I thought were really poor, but we were saying: ‘let’s see what they’re like against better opposition’.

“Today, against Brighton, I thought they were outfought, they were by Brighton and I thought they were all over the place, Liverpool, particularly defensively.

“He absolutely bullied those two centre-halves today, did Welbeck. Those two were all over the place.”

Focusing in on Brighton’s early opener, Shearer added: “It’s a terrible pass from the goalkeeper, an awful touch from the defender.

“Watch Van Dijk’s reaction, he’s screaming at his players to get back and help them.

“Then the throw-in comes, [Brighton] take a touch, no pressure on the ball, take another touch, and another, ping it in as you want, free header at the far post and he’s Welbeck is all over Konate.

“He bullies Konate, as I said, and he gets the goal with ease.”

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Shearer did have sympathy for the Reds, though, claiming they were massively thrown off their game after striker Hugo Ekitike was forced from the field with an injury just eight minutes into the contest.

“There’s no doubt that the situation with Hugo Ekitike upset them in terms of the rhythm and they had to change one or two bits,” Shearer went on.

“But there were three different right-backs today, clearly that doesn’t help.

“I just thought there was no pressure in midfield, no real threat up front and, defensively, the spaces in between were glaring. It was so obvious what was missing.”