Atalanta (A) - EL Quarter Final, 2nd leg - Thu 18th Apr 2024 (8:00pm)

[magicrat]

We didnt concede the first goal 

[johnsusername]

1 minute ago, Mathewbet1 said:

Sign him up

 

Nobody seems to want to manage us!

[Dapower]

New tactics and ideas needed we are a limited team

[rubble-rouser]

For the third game in a row we’ve been outfought physically in midfield by a hardworking but limited side. Poor Macca is totally fucked. Dom has been shite for weeks. Jones was better tonight than some others but that’s not saying much.

 

Macca just isn’t a six in a team that wants to win trophies. Nullifies him. 
 

Fuck football

[Carvalho Diablo]

That 2nd half was both pitiful and shameful.

 

How thick are we???

 

Casualty strolling around and playing bullshit nothing passes around the back. I bet fucking Alisson touched the ball more than any other player in that 2nd half, and we seemed content to go out with a wimper.

 

Are our players so thick that they didn't realise that time was against us?!

 

Absolutely shite.

 

Mentality mongoloids.

[The Guest]

It’s absolutely nothing to do with bravery or effort.  It’s completely down to how we set up.  It’s why nothing gets any better whoever we pick to play and whoever comes off the bench.  If we had played the kids we would have got absolutely murdered.

 

Still I look forward to code putting up some obscure skewed stats and the penalty and some sort of reason Salah was brilliant tonight again.

[DaveT]

11 minutes ago, Lee909 said:

Jota fouled and they get a throw in

Apart from the penalty, the referee has been a cunt all night. There was more danger of us getting a bad injury or two than scoring in that second half, he let them get away with so much crap.

[Saintslfc13]

Fair play to Atalanta. They destroyed us at ours and then Rafa'd us at theirs. Our team not having any clue what to do for the last 20 or so minutes that I actually got to sit an watch whilst they just stood off us is absolutely infuriating and disheartening. We were happy to pass it around the back inviting a press that was never coming, by passing our own midfield only for any balls we won to be mopped up by their players in a congested area. No one seemed to want to make the mistake that lead to a chance for them so therefore we relied on prayer balls to try to create our own and predictably it amounted to fuck all.

[stringvest]

4 minutes ago, Elite said:

Of the signings in the last few years, only Maccalister is good enough.

 

not lately he isn't.  They've all been poor.  To be fair, he did have an excellent period once Endo came in to the team, but he has faded very badly as have the rest of them.  

 

The players are variously mentally and physically tired, and I hope whoever comes in does look at some of the older players in particular and realise that it's time for them to go. 

[AHA]

1 minute ago, Rico1304 said:

Did anyone else notice the ball boys disappeared in the 2nd half?  

Noticed they had a throw in and one of their players had  a word with the ball boy. Probably told them to disappear 

[Olddantucker]

1 minute ago, 3 Stacks said:

Klopp chose a fantastic moment to go. Regaled us with a title chase for 30 games that had no business happening and will (probably) gift us a Champions League place. This team could not do any better.

So that would be the glass half full perspective, then. I like it, I’ll cling to it, deep down I will know it’s probably a pile of bollocks.

[El Rojo]

Really flat second half.

 

Wouldn’t give much hope for our remaining league games.

 

We couldn’t deal with that high press from Atalanta either night. 

[rubble-rouser]

1 minute ago, Dave D said:

I still think Klopp announcing he was off half way through the season was very odd timing and has been a factor

But only since we stopped winning all our games and that trophy. 

[joe_fishfish]

1 minute ago, Jairzinho said:

Hope Atalanta go on and win it. Good manager, good players, good fans. 

 

We were fucking embarrassing across the 180 minutes, however. Dimwitted, pedestrian, wasteful shite. 

Good manager? Hard disagree there. They made Atletico Madrid look like 1970 Brazil tonight. Imagine watching that kick and rush shite every week, it’s no wonder he lasted eight games or something at Inter.

 

 

[Elite]

Just now, stringvest said:

 

not lately he isn't.  They've all been poor.  To be fair, he did have an excellent period once Endo came in to the team, but he has faded very badly as have the rest of them.  

 

The players are variously mentally and physically tired, and I hope whoever comes in does look at some of the older players in particular and realise that it's time for them to go. 

He has obvious quality that could play in any team but he's been poor lately.

[mike23]

Decentish first half. Utterly pitiful second half. Maybe if Mo hadn't missed that complete sitter it might have been completely different, but it seems too much to ask of our forwards to score even easy chances at the moment. This team just looks to be completely shot physically and mentally. 

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

Salah scores ant it’s fully game on. Unbelievably bad effort, no excuse. But there will be.

[Red Phoenix]

Time to focus fully on the league then. Getting a clean sheet and having Trent and Ali back might help get a bit more confidence going too. Wasn't good to watch that though obviously apart from maybe the early stages where it looked like we were playing well.

[TheSire]

4 minutes ago, Moo said:

I honestly don't think, as a team, we're playing much "worse" than we have all season.  Performances have been very average across the whole season with only a few exceptions but until recently we've been scoring goals and winning matches by small margins.  So without a shadow of a doubt the forwards have let us down recently, that's what's changed.

I don't agree tbh. I think we've had some really nice patterns of play and have been much quicker at moving the ball and having control for longer periods. We just seem to have lost belief and can't do anything right. It's concerning that it's happened a few times now though.

[joe_fishfish]

4 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

Klopp chose a fantastic moment to go. Regaled us with a title chase for 30 games that had no business happening and will (probably) gift us a Champions League place. This team could not do any better.

Disagree with this as well. Bit more luck with injuries this season and we’d still be in with a shout for the league, probably wouldn’t have conceded three at home to this Atalanta side either.

[3 Stacks]

5 minutes ago, Olddantucker said:

So that would be the glass half full perspective, then. I like it, I’ll cling to it, deep down I will know it’s probably a pile of bollocks.

Well it's either that or you say the guy that dragged us into a title race when he could have left last season, sabotaged the club with his exit.

[chrisbonnie]

3 minutes ago, Dave D said:

I still think Klopp announcing he was off half way through the season was very odd timing and has been a factor

But how could the club hide the fact they where actively looking for his replacement? 

 

I get what you're saying, but in this day and age, it would have been impossible to keep it quiet 

[AHA]

The whole midfield was shite but I would seriously drop Salah for the rest of the season. Absolute waste of space since he came back. That lob he missed was disgraceful 

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

The damage was done in the first leg. 
 

But, tonight was worse, for me. 
 

To score so early, then have a huff and very little puff for the rest of the first half was shite. But, that second half was absolutely insipid shite. Absolutely no width in the team again. Atalanta tightened up in the second half, but we still insisted on trying to play through the middle of them. 
 

That’s when we bothered trying. That period of play around the 80th minute when we seemed to spend ages just passing the ball around between Alisson, the two CBs and Mac Allister was mind boggling. We were playing like a team who were involved in a fixed World Cup qualifier. Not looking to score, not looking to concede. It’s almost as if they forgot that we needed to score 2 more to stay in. 
 

That showed a lack of ideas too. Why when we’ve got two big lads up top in Nunez and Danns didn’t we go a bit more direct and try and pick up second balls or win free kicks higher up the pitch?

 

It was awful. The tempo. The attitude. The ownership. The lack of risk. Going through the motions stuff. The tactics. The lot of it. Utter pish. 
 

Klopp has given us some of our greatest nights in Europe. So, it’s sad to see his final European campaign ending in such an un-Klopp like performance. To be blunt, he was tactically outclassed by Gasperini over the two legs. 

[Redder Lurtz]

I can forgive the result after last week's shit show but I cannot forgive the most cowardly, gutless European 2nd half performance I've ever seen under Klopp. That was fucking dreadful. At half time we were in control. Three attacking subs later we were on our knees spreading our arse cheeks for a shit mid table Italian team. Utterly fucking unforgivable. Wankers.