They gambled and they lost. Facing a side they had humiliated in their own stadium a few weeks earlier, Jurgen Klopp radically altered his back-four and saw Liverpool beaten as comfortably as they can ever have been at Anfield under his management.
This was to have been the night that Liverpool qualified for the knockout stages of the Champions League with something to spare. They will still be favourites to go through in first place but next Tuesday’s game with Ajax is now live and an intense season has become that touch more stressful.
Bergamo’s leading football team are named after a mythical Greek huntress who killed any man that attempted to break her vow of chastity. In the 5-0 rout Liverpool inflicted in Italy, the Atalanta strikers had been rather less threatening.
However, just as Klopp predicted, Atalanta were far more of a threat on Merseyside. For one thing there was the stinging verdict of the media to wash away. “Five slaps”, Gazzetta dello Sport had called it, pointing out Liverpool’s “overwhelming, embarrassing superiority”.
Then there was the shape of Liverpool’s defence. For the team of the huntress, a back-four composed of three young defenders plus Joel Matip must have seemed inviting prey. Within the opening ten minutes, Atalanta had carved out three chances and could have scored more than two.
In his programme notes Klopp, who has wearied of complaining about the burdens of the injury and fixture lists, had emphasised the need for Liverpool to squeeze out the very last drop of their resources. “In this season, more than any other, every member of our group will have to play a role if we are to achieve anything,” he said.
So the team that 18 months ago became champions of Europe, fielded the unrelated Neco and Rhys Williams at right and centre-back and Curtis Jones in midfield. All were born in 2001, the year Liverpool, under Gerard Houllier, won a trio of cups. It was, perhaps appropriately, captained by James Milner who in his career has played in every position bar centre-forward and goalkeeper.
It was an error from the club’s most famous squad member, Mohamed Salah, that first opened Liverpool up. A slack pass, across the face of the pitch, went straight to Josip Ilicic. The Slovenian drove forward but sent his shot into the Kop, which these days is festooned with banners and slogans.
Then Robin Gosens, cutting in from the left, sent a drive that Alisson Becker pushed away at his near post. The more you studied the save, the better it was. The pace and the precision of the shot was almost perfect. Soon afterwards, Alejandro Gomez was advancing on Matip but his aim was rather less accurate.
Klopp’s front three was the still-formidable combination of Salah, Sadio Mane and Divock Origi but, without Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson, the full-backs did not push up as hard as they normally do. Liverpool’s one real opportunity was a drive from Salah that ended up near a banner that declared: “Unity is Strength”. Len McClusky, who went to school in Anfield, would have approved of the sentiment if not the accuracy.
Ilicic walked off at the interval still trying to persuade the referee that he had been wrong to deny him a penalty, when Kostas Tsimikas pulled him back. Replays suggested Carlos Grande had been right but the 32-year-old was not to be denied.
He met Gomez’s beautiful cross with a sliding shot that left Alisson stranded and Klopp chose that moment to shake up a faltering side. He might have planned a triple substitution after 60 minutes but not when Atalanta had just scored.
On a night which began with a minute’s silence for Diego Maradona, it was an Argentine who was to have the decisive influence. Having made the first goal, a cross from Gomez was nodded down into Gosens’s path and Liverpool’s first defeat at Anfield since the tense trauma of Atletico Madrid ended their hold on the European Cup came into view.
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from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3fA2ZeR
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