Liverpool suffered a devastating 3-0 defeat at home against a formidable Atalanta on Thursday evening, leaving their Europa League aspirations in jeopardy.
Liverpool endured a nightmarish defeat at Anfield on Thursday, leaving Jurgen Klopp without grievances. His Reds squad suffered a resounding 3-0 loss to the formidable Serie A side Atalanta.
Atalanta’s prowess laid bare the shortcomings of a Liverpool team that underwent six changes from their previous match against Manchester United. The absence of their usual rhythm and composure was evident throughout the game.
Klopp was very open in his post-match comments, saying: “I didn’t like our tactical positioning in possession. We gave them one situation by passing the ball there, then everyone was chasing another guy.
“We scored one that was offside but it was a bad game from us. Atalanta had a good game, scored three goals and deserved to win.
“A lot of performances tonight were really ‘oops, wow, I didn’t know they could play like that.’ A lot of the players looked really alone in a lot of moments. It was really bad.”
It’s quite clear who Klopp was criticising with those remarks. The Liverpool manager made significant changes at halftime in an attempt to turn the game around.
While Harvey Elliott was unlucky with his shot hitting the post and bar, and Curtis Jones is still recovering from injury, there’s no excuse for Kostas Tsimikas’ performance.
The Greek appeared noticeably off his game and lacking fitness in a rare outing, a far cry from his impressive stint filling in for Andy Robertson.
Similarly, Caoimhin Kelleher’s performance fell short of expectations, despite his commendable stand-in role for Alisson during his absence. Perhaps, both players have pushed themselves a bit too far.
Fortunately for Klopp, Alisson is back in full training, and Robertson is also making good progress.
Both of them must reclaim their spots in the starting XI for the rest of the season, as Liverpool aims to regain the defensive stability they lacked recently.
Klopp experimented with rotations and paid the price for it, but moving forward, he’ll likely stick with his strongest lineup, barring any inconsequential matches like the second leg against Bergamo.
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