Before reliving Liverpool’s latest torture at the hands of Real Madrid in several post-match interviews, Jürgen Klopp delivered a telling instruction to an angry home dressingroom. The reaction is likely to have repercussions beyond a season of alarming regression.
“I told the boys that a defeat is a defeat if you don’t learn from it,” the Liverpool manager said. “The start was outstanding, us in a nutshell, and that’s what we have to keep doing. If we allow this one game to be really influential we are really silly; 5-2 can be damaging but I have to make sure it is not.”
Klopp’s message was telling because it recognised the implications of a game that was not just any other game or any other defeat, but unlike any Anfield encounter in his European adventures with Liverpool. It spoke of the task he faces of containing the fallout from the worst home defeat in Liverpool’s European history. Klopp has had the challenge of lifting bruised morale since the deflating finale to last season’s pursuit of the quadruple. And of repairing all season the defensive and midfield frailties ruthlessly and coolly exposed by Real. The response has been fleeting and seriously flawed, in line with Liverpool’s explosive start to the last-16 first-leg tie and their subsequent collapse.
Reports of Liverpool’s resurrection after 2-0 Premier League defeats of relegation-threatened Everton and 10-man Newcastle were greatly exaggerated, including by Klopp. There was also an element of denial in Liverpool’s manager and players pinning Tuesday’s chastening defeat on their own mistakes and Real’s ability to punish them. Yes, there was an extensive list, from Joe Gomez’s positioning and body shape for the first goal, Alisson’s clearance for the second, static defending for the third and fourth and the magnificent Luka Modric dispossessing Fabinho and gliding away from Stefan Bajcetic, 19 years his junior, in the creation of the fifth.
Their analysis glossed over the erosion of Liverpool’s belief after Vinícius Júnior had cancelled out an early two-goal lead. And of Klopp’s team being comprehensively outclassed on and off the ball throughout the second half. Liverpool were chasing shadows and squandering possession cheaply to the sounds of “olés” from the away section long before the final whistle. Recognition that Real were operating on a higher level came from the Liverpool crowd when applauding Modric and Karim Benzema as the world-class duo were substituted and saluting the entire visiting team as they headed down the tunnel.
Virgil van Dijk claimed Liverpool’s second-half schooling was a “football thing” rather than a mentality issue or a combination of both. “You play football also with your head but it was a football thing,” the defender said. “You make mistakes and they punish you. They are one of the biggest clubs in the world. Quality players all over the team, they can punish you and punish mistakes that you make and that’s what they did. We have almost an impossible job in Madrid in three weeks’ time but when the time is right we’ll focus and give everything to represent the club as good as we can. Until then we try to keep improving and focus now on Crystal Palace.
“It is difficult but it is the hard reality and something we have to deal with. We have to deal with it as a group, as a unit. It’s not been the easiest season so far but the only way to get out of it is to stick together and that’s the message – even now. Everyone is angry, everyone is disappointed but the next game is in four days so if we want to perform there we have to quickly change the switch and that’s what we’re going to do. Losing is never good and the way we lost, almost not giving ourselves a chance in Madrid, is tough.”
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A penny, or European cent, for the thoughts of Jude Bellingham after an ultimately one-sided contest between two of the clubs who want to sign the Borussia Dortmund midfielder this summer?
Klopp has invested, and risked, great faith in the England international becoming part of an overdue rebuild of Liverpool’s midfield come the end of a trying campaign. Without an improbable comeback at the Bernabéu or overhauling several rivals for fourth place in the Premier League there will be no Champions League with which to entice Bellingham to Anfield. And the 19-year-old is merely one of several high-calibre, expensive recruits that Liverpool’s owner, Fenway Sports Group, needs to purchase. Real Madrid can offer, well, Real Madrid, along with the priceless education that Eduardo Camavinga and Aurélien Tchouaméni are receiving from working alongside Modric; providing the Croatia international extends his contract beyond this season.
Tuesday may have sounded alarm bells for Bellingham but Klopp has been acutely aware of Liverpool’s shortcomings all season, even though the transfer business suggests otherwise. It was 7 September when he admitted Liverpool needed to reinvent themselves after a shambolic 4-1 defeat at Napoli in the opening Champions League game. His team responded with five consecutive group stage wins but paid a price for that heavy defeat in Naples with a second-placed finish that invited an ominous draw for the last 16.
Seven points adrift of fourth-placed Tottenham but with two games in hand, Liverpool require another convincing reaction in the Premier League to salvage their lucrative place at the top table of European football. It will not be easy, however, to erase the pain of the latest encounter with Real. “We don’t talk about the second leg,” said Van Dijk, bluntly, when asked whether Liverpool retained any hope of progressing. “The second leg is in three weeks.” – Guardian
