Daniel’s Debrief: Liverpool 6-1 Sparta Prague

Managing a European campaign alongside a league title challenge is a true test of a top manager.

Probably the biggest criticism of Antonio Conte as a manager is his lack of performance in Europe; Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger both underperformed in Europe in comparison to their work on the domestic stage too.

Inter Milan are a good case study. Simone Inzaghi gets them to the Champions League final last year but they finish 18 points off title winners Napoli in Serie A. This season, they are comfortably top of the league but this week were eliminated by Atletico Madrid from the Champions League.

I know we’re talking about the Europa League which is a different level but tonight both would-be Liverpool managers experience how tough it can be in Europe - Sporting are knocked out while Leverkusen are taken all the way by Qarabag.

It’s hard. Balancing and maintaining form and progress in both the league and European competition isn’t easy and it’s why so few actually end up doing it.

But it’s something Jurgen Klopp has made commonplace - this will now be the sixth time he has reached the quarter-finals in eight European campaigns - a ridiculous record, really.

Liverpool have strolled their way into the last eight of this competition - not just against Sparta Prague but since LASK in September. Klopp has made sure Liverpool have had too much for the opposition every time they’ve taken to the field.

He’s taken the competition seriously, while also not going as strong as he would if it was the Champions League. He’s found the perfect blend so often in team selection and even tonight, he gets minutes into the legs of Mohamed Salah, Darwin Nunez and Dominik Szoboszlai, while getting a complete rest for Alexis Mac Allister and Luis Diaz.

Part of why we’ve got through the injury crisis that threatened to derail the season is the manager’s complete faith in the whole of his squad. He’s prepared to not take any risks and to back his fringe players and his youngsters.

In previous seasons, we might have seen Alisson Becker and Trent Alexander-Arnold back by now, but as it is, there’s no need to rush them when their stand-ins Caoimhin Kelleher and Conor Bradley are doing so well.

Klopp will have had a mental checklist for tonight which will have included winning the game, avoiding any injuries and getting the right amount of minutes into and out of each player.

Every box was ticked.

This game was always going to be a dead rubber but his management of situations like these is so good.

It’s not the highlight because of everything that’s already happened and everything that could still happen, but the rise and involvement of the youngsters is a great sidenote to this season.

Conor Bradley and Jarell Quansah start tonight, as they do on Sunday, and both have ensured that the absences of Konate and Alexander-Arnold haven’t been felt.

The success of their loan deals last season has obviously played a factor because while they will always have had talent, a year of playing men’s football is undoubtedly where their maturity and football worldliness has been developed.

They just don’t make mistakes and their decision-making is first-class. Mateusz Musialowski comes on for his debut in the second half and he’s been raved about for years but looks so raw in the game, whereas Bradley and Quansah are so assured and so calm, and despite possessing shirt numbers that combine to make 159, look every bit first-team players.

Bobby Clark is another that doesn’t look out of place and has contributed during this wild period of the last six weeks. His pressing is key to Liverpool’s ludicrous start to the game and he gets his goal too.

He’s a nice player. So many number tens struggle to apply themselves to a three-man midfield but Clark has done it seamlessly and a lot of the reason why is that he is disciplined and has a thirst for the defensive side of the game too.

What’s interesting with Clark is that you can clearly see the senior players rate him. Some of his interplay with Mohamed Salah in particular was very nice.

Salah, Darwin Nunez and Clark all start the game supremely and it’s their work and quality that Sparta Prague cannot handle and the first thirteen minutes is anarchy.

Salah’s playmaking ability is so underrated and it’s what sets him apart from the other great goalscoring wide players, for me. 

I thought he looked rusty against Man City but this was a much sharper and more involved Salah. He took his goal well and some of his link-up was audacious, both with Nunez and Cody Gakpo, and Dominik Szoboszlai.

Szoboszlai gets better as the game goes on and Klopp has done a good job of playing him into fitness. 

He will be competing with Harvey Elliott for the midfield spot alongside Wataru Endo and Alexis Mac Allister on Sunday. Elliott is tremendous when he comes on and is starting to be more and more influential on proceedings.

Liverpool exert so much superiority over Sparta Prague - the league leaders in Czech Republic - over two legs, but particularly in that first fifteen minutes.

The gulf in class is bordering on abusive at times. The reality is that Liverpool are a Champions League team in everything but name.

There is now light at the end of the tunnel for Liverpool are one game away from the end of this crazy period which looked and felt so daunting in mid-February.

But Klopp’s use and trust of his squad, so many of whom have stepped up their performance levels accordingly, has not just got us through, but has provided an incredible platform for the last push, when this run would’ve broken most teams.

United on Sunday was always the target. Get to there with things respectable.

That’s what I was thinking before Luton on 21st February. Just manage this period as well as you can and hope that things look brighter after the international break.

Winning that game, then winning a trophy, then beating Southampton, then beating Forest, then slaughtering Prague, then that City performance. Then tongiht. One more on Sunday.

How has he done it?

Ruben Amorim’s team are out. Xabi Alonso’s team are extremely fortunate to be through. Simone Inzaghi is out of the Champions League.

Whichever one of those three gets the job will need to harness and cultivate how Klopp, time and time again, manages period of adversity and stays not just competitive, but supreme, on multiple fronts.

Daniel