The first thing to say is that it doesn’t matter, because nothing really does in this phase of the Champions League (although fair play to Michael Carrick’s Manchester United for briefly making it seem as though it might). Despite their 3-2 defeat away to Fenerbahçe on Wednesday, Liverpool will make it to the knockout phase of the Champions League and will probably do so without recourse to the play-off round. But the manner of the defeat was concerning, and exposed issues with which the Andoni Iraola rebuild will have to deal.
But before we come to that, a lament for the Champions League. The lackeys and lickspittles and those who believe football is some sort of dramatic art, a thing that happens in the background on screens in the corner of rooms, generating moments when the hubbub stops and people turn to watch a goal or a save or a foul or a pass or, heaven help us, a rabona, will cheer. The tourists who turn up for a football experience in the way they go to watch Shakespeare at the Globe, or cosplay being miners by going down a gloomy lift shaft in a heritage pit, will love it. But traditionalists who still see football as a sport, in which the struggle for a result is the most important thing, are left cold.
This season absurd numbers of goals are being scored in the league phase (an average of 4.04 at present), which is in part because of some grotesque mismatches, in part because of shameful collapses such as that of Lens against Come, and in part because for the biggest teams these games just don’t matter, which gives them a bit of a third-place play-off air; there just doesn’t seem much point grimly scrapping to cling on for a point when everybody half-decent’s going through anyway.
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United offered mild excitement on Tuesday, largely by the ineptitude of their first-half performance. Had they lost to Roma, with Sporting, Bayern, RB Leipzig and Villarreal still to come, they might actually have been in trouble – but the far more immediate concern was the future of Michael Carrick. Coming from 2-0 down to win in a thrilling second half at least restores some pride and ends the sense of inevitable drift and, depending on the result against Aston Villa on Sunday, will probably sustain him in the job for another few weeks – unless, that is, United already have somebody lined up to take over in the international break. The caveat, though, is that exactly the same thing happened five years ago, as a United led by a popular former player came from two down to beat a Serie A side led by Gian Piero Gasperini – Atalanta back then. Ole Gunnar Solskjær was sacked a month later.
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The familiar grumbling about the format aside, though, what can be said of Liverpool? After the home defeat to Manchester City, an oddly anti-climactic occasion on which the relative weakness of their defence was exposed, they won four in a row. Two of those games were hard-fought league battles against form sides, Brentford and Brighton, and the other two Champions League frolics in which they conceded three. They beat Chelsea on penalties in the League Cup but then have lost the last two, 1-0 to Arsenal in a game in which they played very well in the second half of the first half before again their bench was exposed, and Wednesday’s defeat to Fenerbahçe, in which their defeat seemed almost unthinkable even with 20 minutes to go.
Twice Liverpool conceded within four minutes of taking the lead. That may be coincidence but, if it becomes a pattern (Liverpool conceded within 10 minutes of scoring against Newcastle and LASK, which is inconclusive), it may suggest a lack of concentration. All three goals conceded were the result of individual errors. First Jérémy Jacquet turned his back in the wall to deflect Mason Greenwood’s free-kick past Alisson. Then Liverpool failed to defend two basic balls into the box. Perhaps Cody Gakpo was at fault for his back header to Archie Brown, but he was at full stretch and presumably felt he had to go for the ball because nobody else was dealing with it. The worst, though, was the third, as Vedat Muriqi simply stood still, holding off a couple of challenges to nod in the most basic of looping crosses. It was the sort of goal you see often in Sunday league or schools football, but at this level, with so much time, Alisson had to come for it.
The defence was the most obvious problem, but not the only one. Liverpool have scored freely in Europe this season, but have managed just 11 goals in nine games in the Premier League. Given how comfortable they often look, it is bizarre how difficult they seem to find it to create chances. The experiment with Bradley Barcola at centre-forward did not really change that, as he was habitually isolated.
His selection in that role, presumably, was an effort to spare Alexander Isak – although Lewis Koumas and Gakpo have also played at centre-forward at times for Liverpool this season – and as such probably falls under the category of highlighting that the squad is not quite deep enough. Similarly, the defensive fallibility in Europe is probably the result of the changes Iraola has made. In that context, it’s perhaps worth remembering that this is Iraola’s first exposure to European football; he is perhaps still learning how best to deal with the additional fixtures, both in terms of preparation and selection.
Those are issues that, while they shouldn’t be ignored, will probably be rectified with time. The bigger doubt is over Alisson. He’s only 34 so there should be no sense he’s past his best or nearing the ned, and he is still capable of remarkable saves but, equally, his form this season has been shakier than his usual excellence. Again, time will probably ease that, but it’s not helping Iraola impose his method.
The direction of travel for Liverpool remains promising but it’s not a straightforward journey. This phase of the Champions League, meanwhile, is still an empty simulacrum of real football.
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