‘Stick with us’: Dominik Szoboszlai says Liverpool are affected by fans leaving early

Dominik Szoboszlai has said Liverpool are being affected by fans leaving Anfield early and called on the supporters to “stick with us”. Boos greeted Sunday’s disappointing 1-1 draw at home to Tottenham, but Szoboszlai was more concerned about the number of people who departed before and after Richarlison’s late equaliser.

The result leaves Liverpool fifth, with their home form a concern. They have drawn four and lost three of their 15 Premier League games at Anfield. A crucial night awaits there on Wednesday, as they seek to turn around a one-goal deficit against Galatasaray in the Champions League.

“We had, a couple of weeks ago, a talk between each other saying: ‘Guys we don’t have such a lot of time to do this right so we have to wake up and start to go in a way that we want to play Champions League next season,’” Szoboszlai said. “We have Galatasaray on Wednesday and that will be a tough game because we felt it there.

“I don’t think it helps us that after 80 minutes people start to go home; it doesn’t help us at all. Stick with us. Everyone is noticing that and when we concede a goal still people are leaving the stadium – you don’t leave when we score. I understand the frustration, but we need them, we need everybody.”

The draw with Tottenham comes after Liverpool lost to a 94th-minute goal at bottom-placed Wolves in their previous league game. The two previous defeats – against Manchester City and Bournemouth – were also caused by injury-time winners, costing Liverpool valuable points in their quest to qualify for the Champions League.

There was a tense atmosphere among the home support on Sunday, with dissent growing at the failure to kill off matches Liverpool had 17 shots against Tottenham, but only four were on target.

“It should be normal that in hard times we stick together more because that’s what we need: we need each other,” Szoboszlai said in a message to the fans. “We want to make them happy; it’s not that we do it on purpose. We want to make ourselves happy, make all the Liverpool supporters happy, but we need them.

“Last year it was for sure enjoyable to watch all the games, but this year maybe it’s not that enjoyable. But still support us also when we are in difficult times.”

Szoboszlai, who played at right-back and scored his 11th goal of the season with his first-half free-kick, said: “We still need to find a solution because we are running out of time.”