El Hadji Diouf says Liverpool “bottled it” last season and have blown their best chance to land the Premier League title.
The Reds came agonisingly close to capturing the crown in 2018-19, with the final standings leaving them one point adrift of champions Manchester City.
Jurgen Klopp’s side suffered just a solitary defeat across a 38-game campaign, but that setback did come against Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering treble winners from the Etihad Stadium.
Diouf believes Liverpool will struggle to get that close again, despite opening 2019-20 with a run of six successive victories.
The Senegalese, who endured an ill-fated spell at Anfield during his playing days, has been outspoken in his criticism of his former club for many years and has decided to reignite that feud.
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Diouf told FourFourTwo: “I don’t see them doing as well as they did last season.
“They had the chance to win the league title; they had it in their hands and then let it slip.
“They were seven points ahead around Christmas – how Manchester City got it in the end beats my mind. As they say in England, I think they bottled it.
“If you have only one defeat in a whole season, surely you can’t say that you didn’t win the league – so it’s hard for me to imagine them having such a similar season and coming out as champions.
“Manchester City will be the team to beat once again.”
City sit five points adrift of Liverpool at present, but there is still a long way to.
Diouf may yet be proved right, with the 38-year-old finding it hard to have anything positive to say about those on the red half of Merseyside.
He was a £10 million flop after agreeing a move to England prior to the 2002 World Cup, with just six goals recorded in 79 appearances.
The two-time African Player of the Year admits to still having regrets over his decision to link up with Liverpool, with the opportunity to move to either Barcelona or Real Madrid having been passed up.
“I’ve never hidden the fact that Liverpool didn’t treat me right and that they cherished some players better than me, even though I’d arrived with a better profile,” Diouf added.
“Sometimes, reporters will never get what goes on in the club and in the dressing room.
“Don’t get me wrong: the club is run very well now, based on what I hear from Sadio Mane, but I feel I was seen as an outsider back then.
“The upsetting thing is that Real Madrid and Barcelona had offered me more money, but I really wanted to go to Liverpool – and it ended up being one of my worst experiences.”
Diouf left Liverpool for Bolton, initially on loan, in 2004 but would go on to take in spells with Sunderland, Blackburn, Rangers, Doncaster and Leeds in British football before bringing the curtain down on his career at Malaysian side Sabah FA.
