Daniel’s Debrief: Atalanta 0-1 Liverpool

They’d be using ask the audience on the first question on Millionaire, this lot.

They’re that dumb.

We’re two goals behind with fifteen minutes to go and I’ve just watched Alisson Becker, Ibrahima Konate and Virgil Van Dijk play fourteen passes between themselves in our own third.

FOURTEEN.

I’ve just seen a team in desperate need of goals muster two shots in the entire second half.

I’ve never seen a team fail to acknowledge their circumstances as much as this Liverpool one does tonight.

Not only do we not shoot. We don’t even create. 0.04xG in the second half.

They play it like it’s the first leg. Trying to kill time. Sitting on their one-goal lead to take back home next week. Not wanting to chance their arm too much.

But no, this is a side that come into the game 3-0  down and are still two goals behind for all of the second half. 

Liverpool play with the tempo of a testimonial match from about half an hour onwards. It’s meek and pathetic.

I’ve seen more pace and urgency from a zimmer frame than what Liverpool offer from minute 30.

I actually think this game has annoyed me more than the first leg, where we were just shite and had an awful night.

Here though, they had everything they needed and wanted to be better.

Imagine if you’d told Gian Piero Gasperini this morning that it’d be 0-1 from the sixth minute. He’d have been fearing the worst. Because there’s no way Liverpool don’t score again and how do we cope with what they’ll throw at us?

And if I’d been told it’s 0-1 on 6 then I’m thinking it’s very much on.

And that’s what I feel up until about 30. For once, we start brightly and carve a few openings. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Cody Gakpo start the game superbly.

But what lets Liverpool’s good start come to nothing is a case of the hot potato. No-one can keep the ball nor look after it.

Ball retention has been atrocious in the last week.

Then there’s the big moment where Mohamed Salah’s chip over Juan Musso is horribly misjudged. 

This is a pretty dreadful effort on goal. It’s on his left foot and he’s got a large target. But the execution is appalling.

There’s a wider conversation around Salah’s future to be had but a relevant point in that will be how much he has struggled since returning from his only significant injury at Liverpool.

His body isn’t doing the work that it could in the first half of the season. He gets subbed here and it’s a surprise to nobody.

There’s a few that could’ve been subbed off.

At the point Dominik Szoboszlai is withdrawn, it takes me about six minutes to realise it’s he, and not Curtis Jones, who’s been taken off. 

Alexis Mac Allister is marked brilliantly by Atalanta but it’s easier to press a deep player than one who has a higher role and it’s incredible that Jurgen Klopp doesn’t bring on Wataru Endo and move Mac Allister further forward.

There seemed to be no tactical plan with his subs, just get as many forwards on as possible.

Darwin Nunez, Diogo Jota and Jayden Danns. I don’t think one of them had a good moment. 

Gakpo ends the game at left-back, for fuck’s sake. Talk about making it up as you go along.

It’s hard to process how bad Liverpool are in the second have and how lacking in ideas or responsibility they are. 

Alisson completes EIGHTY-TWO passes.

This is the look of a team that needs the end of the season. They’ve given up.

It’s sad to say but the manager was right. He’s a clever man and whilst it’s only now becoming obvious to us, he will have known for a while that he was struggling for motivation or energy.

I’ve never seen Klopp get so outcoached as he has done in these two legs by Gasperini.

To be in front after six minutes was an ideal start. But what follows is an embarrassment.

It’s now four games in a row with no goal from open play. Over 600 minutes.

The team is done, this manager is done and the most enjoyable, personal and memorable era is heading for possibly quite an unpleasant ending.

Of course, the Reds are still within touching distance of the top of the league but winning six games feels like a pipe dream at the minute. I’ll be surprised if we win more than three right now.

To make matters worse, Arsenal and Man City getting knocked out of the Champions League only makes their league schedule and chances healthier and every Liverpool fan will have been gutted to see them both exit.

I never fancied it was going to happen tonight and I certainly don’t fancy that the league title is on.

There you go then. Jurgen Klopp has turned the believers to doubters.

Daniel