Sky Sports pundit Graeme Souness has been labelled 'uneducated and clueless' by an Aston Villa groundsman after claiming Liverpool's shocking 7-2 defeat on Sunday night was down to the length of the grass.
Jurgen Klopp's Premier League champions saw their perfect start to the season end abruptly at Villa Park, with Ollie Watkins scoring a hat-trick on an unforgettable night for the home side.
But Liverpool legend Souness, who played for and managed the club, bizarrely blamed the Reds' poor performance on the state of the pitch, claiming that Villa groundstaff had left the grass longer in order to slow the visitors' speed of passing.
'What I would say, Villa, and it's the same for both teams, I think they've left the grass longer than normal to slow Liverpool's movement,' Souness said while working as a pundit for Sky Sports.
'All the top teams want short grass, a fast pitch. That doesn't look like a fast pitch to me.'
Souness' comments were described as 'sour grapes' by presenter David Jones during Sky's live coverage, but they also sparked a backlash from Eddie Mills, who is a member of Villa's matchday groundstaff.
Mills, 50, took aim at the former Rangers midfielder on Twitter, insisting that he had insulted all groundsman with his half-time rant.
'Graeme Souness's uneducated comments about the villa pitch are insulting to all the massively hardworking groundsman up and down the country who put their hearts and souls into their proud work! #clueless,' Mills wrote.
Mills, who is a former course manager at Edgbaston Golf Club, has worked on Villa's pitch for the last nine years and is a lifelong fan of the club.
