It’s been so long I’d forgotten what a defeat felt like. It’s not nice. I don’t like it and I’m not taking it too well. I actually started writing this immediately after the game, which is not my usual approach as I normally like time to reflect before I do the report.
I need to get stuck into this just because it’s cathartic. There’s a lot to get off my chest here and a shitload of things I need to vent about. Currently I’m trying to decide who I’m most angry with. Is it the ref? Their shithouse players? Simeone and his jack in the box shite on the touchline? Maybe it’s Steve McManaman.
Yeah it’s Steve McManaman. He did my fucking head in all night, completely buzzing off Atletico, Simeone, Diego Costa… you name it he was kissing the arse of it. I see loads of Reds ripping him after our games but until now he’d never really bothered me (other than the ridiculous over pronunciation of any word ending with ‘ing’). Tonight though, Jesus Christ I wanted to strangle him.
But if we’d played the way we can then I doubt I’d have even noticed how massively irritating he was. That’s the main thing here really. We didn’t play well enough and despite all the other things that got right under my skin, none of it excuses our lack of goal threat. We sometimes have games like this away in Europe. I can’t explain it but it’s definitely a ‘thing’. We’ve lost six of our last ten or something, which shows you it’s a ‘thing’ because domestically we’ve lost one game in the last hundred or something mental. I don’t know, I’ve lost count.
This wasn’t one of those horror shows like we saw last season in Naples and Belgrade though. The performance wasn’t bad in a lot of areas but we just never looked like scoring. No shots on target apparently, although I’m not sure how they work that out when Mo had a goal bound shot headed away by a defender? I guess it only counts as a shot on target if the keeper saves it.
They defended well and they’re probably the best in the business at that sitting deep and frustrating approach. That’s the reason they were the last team in the draw I wanted. I still expected us to go through comfortably enough and nothing has changed, but they are fucking horrible to play against and them scoring so early was the worst thing that could have happened.
Proper fucking spawny goal it was too. I thought it was offside until about the fourth replay when I finally saw that it had come off Fabinho. Things like that can happen though. All it takes is one lucky ricochet or fortunate bounce and any team can concede, no matter how strong they are defensively.
We responded well and took control of the game, but equally you can say they were happy for us to have the ball as they had their goal and were happy to keep what they had. It was all out defence for them from that moment on. I’ll be honest, after about 15 minutes I couldn’t have been more confident. There was no way they could keep us out for an entire game playing like that, surely?
They did though. And I can’t even say they rode their luck either. They were as comfortable as it’s possible to be when the other team has virtually all of the possession. We did a great job of preventing them getting out and their counter attacking opportunities were extremely limited. That side of our game was good but we had no cutting edge at all, especially after Origi came on for Mané.
Taking Sadio off at half time was a risk but I agreed with it. I’d have 100% done the same thing. He’d been booked for catching the right back with a stray arm and then he caught him again soon after. He was a proper fucking shithouse that right back and he was desperate to get Sadio another yellow. Scruffy twat. Bet Sadio can’t wait to tear him a new one in a few weeks.
He was skating on thin ice here though. There wasn’t much in the second foul but the Atletico players were doing all they could to get him sent off. Sadio can get wound up on occasion and this was a bit like that Club World Cup final when Flamengo targeted him. Would he have got through the second half unscathed? I doubt it.
Klopp was having none of it and subbed him to keep him for the second leg. Unfortunately Origi came on and looked like he’d never played football before in his life. The first 15 minutes he was on the field he was so bad that I’d genuinely have subbed him off. He was absolutely killing us. Every attack ended up with him either running the ball straight out of play or just passing it one of their players.
In his defence, he’s looked fucking awful on the left wing all season. At centre forward he makes things happen but on the left he stinks. The problem is so does Ox. In fact, other than Sadio there’s no-one who looks good out there. I’m being deadly serious here when I say Curtis Jones needs some game time in the Premier League now to see if he can be a viable back up for Mané, because none of Ox, Minamino (early days I know) or Origi look like they can do it.
Anyway, Origi was brutal but over on the other side Trent wasn’t much better. We were never going to get through the middle as they’re too strong and had too many bodies in there. The space was out wide, but we didn’t use it enough and when we did the quality wasn’t there.
I’m trying to think of any real chances we had but I’m struggling. Mo fucked one up in the first half when the keeper kicked it straight to him. If he meant to pass to Bobby then it was a braindead decision as Firmino was ten yards offside. If he didn’t mean to (and I don’t think he did) then it was as heavy a first touch as you’ll ever see.
He also had a shot headed away by a defender and missed with a header that went narrowly wide from a Gomez cross (showing Trent how it’s done), while Hendo had a couple of efforts that narrowly missed the target. We had two or three penalty appeals for handball but I didn’t think there was anything in any of them and I have no complaints on that score.
So basically, we created fuck all really. We had loads of the ball but we did virtually nothing with it. The delivery from out wide wasn’t good enough, the passing from the midfield was too safe (did Gini or Fabinho play a ball forward all night?) and the forwards never really got into it.
It was just complete and utter frustration. You could see our lads getting annoyed by the antics of Simeone and his players, but because it was only the first leg I also felt as though there was also a sense of calm. We didn’t get desperate and try to force things and that’s a good sign of the maturity in the squad.
The attitude from the players is that it’s only half time and there’s an awful lot of football still be played in this one. Clop’s approach to substitutions also showed his mindset. In a one off game there’s no way he’d have taken off Mané and Salah when we were losing. No way. But he was able to do that because of the second leg.
The ref though. Fucking hell. So, so bad. There were so many things he got wrong but two really stand out to me. The foul on Ox on the edge of the box, and the handball out wide by their defender which he inexplicably didn’t give and resulted in Klopp getting a yellow card for finally snapping and yelling abuse at him.
The ref also stopped the game in the first half at one point because one of their defenders decided he needed to get his breath back after a sprint with Hendo. He wasn’t even injured, he was just out of puff and sat down for a breather! I couldn’t believe the ref stopped the game for that. It wasn’t the only time he did it either.
As soon as Atletico’s players realised what they could get away with, they just became insufferable. Every single time we went near them they hit the deck, and 90% of the time the ref blew for a foul.
In fairness, it really is a fucking hard job. Take the free kick he gave against Mo early on in the corner, when he dragged the ball away from the left back who just hurled himself to the floor and screamed. On first viewing I thought it was a dive but I wasn’t sure. It’s only when you see the replays that the magnitude of the cheating is really laid bare. That was fucking scandalous, but I find it hard to blame the ref for that because they make it look so convincing.
Trying to determine what’s a foul and what’s a dive isn’t easy, and when there are sixty thousand fans screaming for free-kicks the pressure is enormous. So I can accept a lot of the mistakes he made, but the two I mentioned above are just inexcusable. You can’t get them wrong as they’re as clear as fucking day. Hopefully that inept cunt is nowhere near the second leg.
I wish we were playing that game today. Having to wait so long is frustrating because I’m itching to see the lads tear into the cunts at Anfield. They are too, you can tell. The interviews with Robbo and Klopp were bristling with needle. They can’t wait to get them back to Anfield and nor can I.
Let’s see if they can defend like that and shithouse their way through 90 minutes under the lights at Anfield. I can’t see it myself, I reckon the lads will be so up for that game they’ll just trample them underfoot and we’ll have to peel Simeone and his players off the turf, but we’ll find out in a few weeks.
The praise they got from BT was way over the top. Don’t get me wrong, they defended brilliantly and their organisation and resolute, dogged, determination is to be admired. I have no problem with them being so defensive because you play to your strengths and that is theirs.
I’ll be fucked if I give them any credit though because of all the other shit that goes with it. This reminded me of playing Mourinho’s Chelsea in 2014. The Gerrard slip game. It felt really similar. The great defending, the time wasting, the shithousery. The frustration I felt watching it.
The big difference this time is we get another chance to put it right. And we will.
Star man is Robbo. He didn’t have much competition to be fair. Hendo was decent, Gomez was good, and everyone else was below par (other than Alisson who did what he had to do well).
Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Henderson (Milner), Wijnaldum; Salah (Oxlade-Chamberlain), Firmino, Mané (Origi):
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