How the national media reacted to Liverpool's 1-0 defeat at Galatasaray in the Champions League on Tuesday evening
Arne Slot reacts during the match between Galatasaray SK and Liverpool FC (Photo by YASIN AKGUL / AFP via Getty Images)
Arne Slot reacts during the match between Galatasaray SK and Liverpool FC (Photo by YASIN AKGUL / AFP via Getty Images)
View Image
A job left to do. Liverpool will be made to work for their place in the last eight of the Champions League after they were beaten 1-0 at Galatasaray in their round of 16 first leg clash on Tuesday evening.
Mario Lemina scored the only goal as the Reds wasted a host of chances and had a goal contentiously disallowed in falling to a fourth defeat in their last 11 games.
It made for an ultimately frustrating evening. And while the ECHO was in attendance and provided our usual level of coverage, here's how the national media viewed a disappointing result for Arne Slot's side.
Lewis Steele of the Daily Mail chose not to reflect on Liverpool's plethora of missed chances and instead focused on the ones spurned by Galatasaray.
"When the ears of Liverpool’s players stop ringing after the dizzying noise of the most intimidating atmosphere many will experience, they might just hear a voice in their head telling them they got away with one," he reckons.
"The English champions lost and have a sizable task to overturn a one-goal deficit in the second leg at Anfield next Wednesday – but their road to the quarter-final could have been much tougher had Galatasaray put away a string of chances.
"Slot’s men lost in the unsettling, ear-splitting cauldron of RAMS Park for a second time this season as ex-Premier League midfielder Mario Lemina gave the Turkish side a precious lead but a sloppy Liverpool were lucky to not be punished further."
Jonathan Wilson of the Guardian believes things will be a lot different in the second leg.
"The good news for Liverpool is that the situation is salvageable, when it really might not have been," he pens. "The bad news is that they were distinctly second best for the first three-quarters of the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie.
"Nobody who saw their second‑half collapse away against Juventus in the playoff round could be confident that Galatasaray are a team capable of squeezing the life out of the second leg. There is a nervousness about them at the back, a persistent sense of misfortune about to strike, but going forward they are breezy, quick and fun.
"And it will be a different game at Anfield. Other crowds whistle but none do so with quite the unanimity, ferocity or pitch of the Galatasaray crowd, which is all the more impressive when you consider the breathtaking nature of the walk up the hill to the Ali Sami Yen, which stands above Vadistanbul like a great citadel, protected on all sides by lanes and lanes of intersecting motorway."
"For nearly a decade Liverpool have leaned on Mohamed Salah when in need of inspiration, here he was hopelessly peripheral," he says. "He appears entirely unable to beat a full-back and it is striking to see such a potent player, fresh off a spectacular season, looking so diminished.
"Salah had more effective games when he played for Chelsea. He was substituted correctly after an hour for Jeremie Frimpong, signed to play at right-back.
"When Arne Slot dropped Salah in November it caused a diplomatic crisis on Merseyside, culminating in Salah saying he had been thrown under the bus. Performances like this are as helpful as comments like those, but he was hardly alone in under-delivering. It was a harrowing night in particular for Ibrahima Konate."
And Hamzah Khalique-Loonat of The Times believes Liverpool were, well, rubbish.
"Liverpool are playing purgatorial football, and their fans are condemned to watching the same insipid game week after week," he opines. "The only question is whether there will be some sort of salvation after all this.
"None looks forthcoming, not least because there were few, if any, redeeming features to this performance, beyond the single goal deficit that Liverpool must hope they can overturn in the second leg at Anfield.
"In hostile conditions, Liverpool wilted. They had chances, but the Champions League necessitates playing with grit or verve, and Arne Slot's team had neither."