Reds European dreams washed away by the Blue and Blacks of Bergamo
Atalanta 0 Liverpool 1, 18th April 2024.
ATALANTA 0
LIVERPOOL 1 (Salah 7)
Atalanta win 3–1 on aggregate
“I’ve watched an advance copy of the match tonight Reds so relax! We score an early one, two late second half goals, hold on valiantly with the kids in extra-time before winning on penalties. So relax, OK? Up The Mighty “Unbearables”
Posting this on Twitter 5 or so hours before kick-off was my own way of releasing the self induced tension I had before this game and as a de-facto almost season defining game I saw this evening’s game as a Cup Final and although 3 goals in deficit prior to kick-off, I was nervously excited and expectant and for 45 minutes, the Reds of Liverpool played a perfect half of football akin to their demolition of Chelsea earlier this season and the back-to-back triumphs against Mancunian Red and Blue as they chased it all in 2022. Liverpool had taken a dangerous opponent, negated any attacking threat and bossed a 45 minutes of sublime forward press football and at half-time were 2 goals from forcing extra-time rather than the pre-game mountain of 3.
If only Mo Salah had doubled his and his team’s goal tally when, on 38 minutes, he tamely and limply lobbed wide of a stranded Juan Musso in the Atalanta goal, a goal he’d score 99 times out of a hundred but sadly, this was the hundredth. The Egyptian King looks “a yard off the pace” in the footballing vernacular and following yet another return in a season blighted by injury. Salah’s form mirrors that of the team around him, near to otherworldly greatness, but yet so far away.
Atalanta fully deserved their 3–1 aggregate success and found their Anfield form in the second half to brilliantly smother and nullify a Liverpool attacking threat to just a single effort from Mo Salah brilliantly saved by Musso guarding the Italian team’s goal and had Salah scored, a linesman’s flag for offside would have denied him anyway. Apart from this? I didn’t record a single goal scoring chance of any real merit. Éderson (49 minutes) and Teun Koopmeiners (60 minutes) tested Alisson Becker in the Reds goal whilst the team in Blue and Black all around them squeezed higher and higher up field and replicated their visitors bossing of the game in the first half.
Alas, the Reds European dream is over.
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The major positive from this evening was as perfect a half of football as you could wish to see. A complete shutting down of the opposition to a dominant game of attack versus defence. This greatly heartens me ahead of Sunday’s trip to the capital and a game of football with Fulham beside the River Thames.
The major negative is a second half of football from a labouring team “cooked” and out on their feet. The results at Manchester United are destined to define this season. Both games have knocked the stuffing out of this team and this simply wasn’t in the script for the final Act of Jürgen Klopp’s farewell season. Where once I saw easy victories I see a team needing to “dig” out a victory and someone other than a Liverpool fan has started writing the season ending script.
Can someone please take his crayons away?
Jürgen Klopp has 6 games left as Liverpool manager, and his team need to win them all.
A final word from The Boss
“I loved the way we started the game. We didn’t lose the tie tonight, we lost it at home. That is why we have to — and it’s very easy to — congratulate Atalanta because they deserved to go through. When you win a tie against us 3–1, especially in this way, you deserve to go through, absolutely. But I loved our game anyway, especially the start. I loved the commitment and the desire, the power we developed in this game, but it was clear we better score from time to time to interrupt these kind of things otherwise it could be tricky to keep that over 90 minutes. How it always is, a second goal would have helped a little bit, it would have been a decisive thing because you saw Atalanta started very strong, confident, but with the few situations we had I think we gave them some concerns. They realised then as well it would not be easy and that’s the game we gave them, so I am really fine with that”.
“Disappointed that we did not go through but not frustrated or angry or something like that. Now we can focus on the league and that’s what we will do. We have a few days to recover, we will do that, and then will travel the day after tomorrow to London and will play Fulham, which will be tricky but we will give our absolute all. That’s our competition now. I saw a good reaction from my side, we had not a great week last week obviously. This, if we want, was the start for the rest of the season with a good result and a good performance and that’s how we see it”.