Liverpool 0-3 Atalanta (Scamacca 38′, 60′, Pasalic 83′)
ANFIELD — There will be a time, over the summer months and next season, when Jurgen Klopp considers which of his nights at Anfield lives longest in the memory. He can move on from Thursday more quickly than his team will. Have Liverpool played worse at this ground under the stewardship of this man? Not for at least three years. It started badly and got worse from there.
The 33-game unbeaten home run is over, obliterated by Atalanta. Even then, it was one in 18 months, humbled by a brilliant Real Madrid team in the Champions League. This was something far less acceptable, a sea of disengaged parts who found common ground only when all making errors within the same minute. Liverpool are not down to one potential trophy quite yet, but they will win nothing if this level of performance is anything other than an aberration.
It’s hard to work out exactly where these slapstick tendencies have been birthed from. Liverpool had their first-choice central defence and two of their best three central midfielders this season, so the spine of the team remains intact. Around them, one too many funny decisions are made. Players miss each other with passes and thought processes, as if operating via a miniscule time delay like an old phone call with the US.
Liverpool failed to beat Manchester United on Sunday because their forwards failed to finish their chances. They fell behind here because their forwards failed to create any. Cody Gakpo produced in flashes but overhit three passes when with a man to aim for. Darwin Nunez, faced by a man-marking system that begged for fluid movement, largely stood still and challenged for headers.
Nunez remains enigmatic, which is a euphemism for a striker who does two things well, one of them difficult, and the third thing terribly. He is a one-man Spot The Ball competition: send him through on goal and guess where the chance ends up. Last time he produced a scooped chip; this time he scuffed the ball five yards wide.
There is an adorable puppy element to all this, the striker they continue to back even when – no, especially when – he has an accident on the cream rug. But we live in the age of control, but can anyone rein in unpredictability when Nunez himself sometimes looks like things seem to happen outside his own sphere of influence?
Atalanta swarmed over Liverpool on the break and hounded them out of possession. It would be remiss not to dwell upon their brilliance and those who came from Bergamo thrashed at the sight of each goal with frank disbelief. They scored once before half-time and that lead could have been tripled without reasonable complaint. They made up for that eventually, anyway – Gianluca Scamacca scored either side of the break before Mario Pasalic added a late third.
When Liverpool’s attacking unit doesn’t click, their defence has repeatedly failed to bail them out. It’s now eight matches in all competitions without a clean sheet. Their only one at Anfield in 2024 came against Championship side Southampton in the FA Cup. There is a fragility that Klopp demonstrably hates, his gnashing teeth soundtracked by existential angst of a fanbase not used to this level of generosity.
By full-time, vague resentment hung in the air. Joe Gomez got the treatment for floating one too many shots over. Caomhin Kelleher got stick for delaying his passes. The introduction of Mohamed Salah, Diogo Jota and Luis Diaz had offered little more than false hope and a disallowed goal – cut to Klopp with a face like an Easter Island statue in the rain. Salah should never have strayed past his defender. Liverpool are straying too far from their course.
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