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Incredible to think we smashed these 5-0 a few weeks ago. Was that performance even better than we realised, or was this just even worse than it seemed? Atalanta definitely seemed like they had a point to prove and often it can be difficult facing an opponent you’ve just battered. We lost to Palace not long after beating them 9-0, and last season Southampton beat Leicester 78 days after being humiliated 9-0 by them at home.* There was always a danger we’d throw in a clunker in this one so that didn’t particularly shock me. I didn’t think it could be as bad as this though. Jeez. It was brutal to watch. No chances, no shots on target and I don’t actually remember any off target either. Did we have a single shot of any note? A lot of these group matches are forgettable but this was so bad it might actually stick in the memory much longer than usual. We’ve lost other group games in recent years and most of them I couldn’t recall now even if you showed me the goals. This one stands out because of how poor it actually was. Not that it matters too much and it’s easy to shrug this off. At least it will be as long as we don’t lose the next two. If we end up in the fucking Europa League then this is going to take on an entirely different feel. I put it on the players rather than the manager though. It wasn’t our strongest line up but they should have performed much better than this. I certainly don’t have any issue with Klopp making changes to the team and he probably would have been entitled to make a couple more had he wanted to. Not making changes for this one would have been irresponsible. The games are coming thick and fast, our players have been dropping like flies and having won our first three fixtures in the group this was a game we did not have to win. And it showed. Put it this way, if a performance like this was coming then I’d much rather it been in this one than in a league game. I can console myself with that easily enough as this was a game we really should be able to afford to lose, unless we completely shit the bed in the next two. It was grim though wasn’t it? Full disclosure, I actually fell asleep and missed the last ten minutes of the first half. I was lying on the sofa watching it and just nodded off. Apparently I didn’t miss anything. Shame I woke up really as the second half was even worse. No-one played well but by far the worst were Salah and Mané. Well, Origi too but I kind of expect that now so it doesn’t impact on me that much. He was given a rare chance to play centre forward and somehow managed to be so bad that I almost understand now why Klopp usually plays him wide, even though he’s fucking terrible out there. Divock basically retired after the Champions League final. He did have one comeback bout when he knocked Everton out but then the gloves were hung up again. He needs to go somewhere and play because he’s not the type of lad who can play once a month and be able to produce his best. Seeing Sadio play like that was mad though. He started badly and got much worse. It’s by far the worst game I’ve ever seen him have. He didn’t look like a good player having a bad game, he just looked completely shit. He was so bad I ended up laughing at one point, wondering just what the fuck was going on. He couldn’t trap a bag of cement, his passing was woeful and he kept falling over his own feet. I’ve never seen anything like it. I wouldn’t have believed he could play as badly as that if I hadn’t witnessed it. Mo was shite too but it’s the kind of shite we’ve seen from him before. It was just a standard bad Mo game. Sadio was on a whole other level to that. He literally couldn’t do a thing right. The service to them wasn’t great either it needs to be said, but since when is that a problem for them? They usually make a lot of their own chances themselves, either through linking up together or doing something individually. Neither offered any threat all night though. The forwards were undoubtedly the worst of the bunch but it was just a terrible collective performance. So many passes went astray it was inexplicable. Even when Fabino came on he was passing it ten yards behind people and then looking thoroughly disgusted with himself. One of those nights where everyone was off. Credit where it’s due though. As awful as we were they played very well and fully deserved their win. Atalanta were the better side in the first half and their confidence grew by the minute. In the second half they looked like the side we were told they were before we smashed them 5-0. They defended well but it was the way they hunted in packs and closed us down quickly that really impressed. When they had the ball they used it well without really cutting us open. They were actually more dangerous in the first game but they had far more control and composure in this one. The little number ten was pulling all the strings and it was no surprise that he was the creator of their opening goal. Lovely ball in to the back post where the striker got away from Tsimikas to meet the cross and leave Alisson with no chance. Klopp had been preparing to make four changes prior to that but it seemed to take forever to get them on. The goal provided the break in play that allowed him to send on Fabinho, Robbo, Bobby and Jota for Gini, Tsimikas, Mo and Divock. It doesn’t bode particularly well for Minamino that he’s back behind Origi in the pecking order and can only get eight minutes at the end of a game when the team is heavily rotated. I had fairly high hopes for him when the season started but it’s not going well is it? The changes improved us I’d say, but not by much. Robbo was about 30 yards higher uptake pitch than Kostas had been which immediately gave us an outlet and produced some crosses into the box. Going to take the Greek lad a little while to get up to speed I think, but that’s normal. No judgements on him yet, that’s for sure. Within minutes of the substitutions it was 2-0. Another ball to the back stick where Robbo was beaten in the air and an unmarked Atalanta forward arrived to finish. Rhys Williams kind of got a bit lost there. I’m not sure what happened as he and Matip seemed to have swapped positions. Matip had been playing right centre with Rhys to the left, but for whatever reason those roles were reversed and the kid drifted to the right edge of the box to follow the striker and then didn’t turn and follow him back in. That was the only blemish on another decent display from him. The kids were certainly not the reason we were so shite in this game. Big Rhys was fine and Jones was probably our best player on the night. Not saying much as it’s not like he played THAT well, but he was ok and gave the ball away a lot less than everyone else. Neco was adequate at right back too. Not great, he still had some of those infuriating moments when he gets caught in possession or holds onto it too long and then has to just launch it, but overall he wasn’t bad. You see how important Trent and Robbo are when they aren’t there though. It was just an incredibly flat, lifeless performance all round. I wasn’t even angry watching it. I was just waiting for it to end so I could switch it off. I’m not angry now writing this, I’m just looking to get to the end so I can move on and start on this week’s round up. Like it or not, we’re going to get some games like this. Everyone is. It’s an inevitable consequence of too many games and no fans in the stadiums. It’s not possible for the players to turn up with maximum intensity every game so I just hope our lads continue to produce it when it’s most needed. Fact is, it wasn’t needed against Atalanta and we saw what happened. Beating Ajax next week is important now because it would allow us to rest everyone for the final game, but I’m calling it here and now that it won’t happen. We won’t beat Ajax because we always seem to take it to the last game. I had hoped after winning our first three that we’d finally put that to bed, but after seeing how this went down I’m now fully expecting us to need to go to Denmark and win, because that’s just how we roll. It’s not ideal and hopefully I’m wrong and we do finish the job against Ajax, but as long as we can continue picking up wins in the league I’ll not get too worked up about nights like these. I don’t really have anything else to say really. On to Brighton, let’s get three points and never speak of this ever again. Team: Alisson; N Williams, Matip (Minamino), R Williams, Tsimikas (Robertson); Wijnaldum (Fabinho), Milner, Jones; Salah (Jota), Origi (Firmino), Mané: * yeah I looked that one up, I didn’t know it was 78 days. I didn’t actually know Southampton beat them either, I just remembered they lost 9-0 and was curious to see how the return game went.