REAL WERE ‘OUT TO KILL’
Anfield bus attack fired Madrid up
MADRID were fired up to send Liverpool crashing out of the Champions League after fans attacked their coach on the way to Anfield.
The Spanish giants played out a goalless draw to knock the Reds out on Wednesday with a 3-1 aggregate win. It came after their coach was pelted with objects thrown by waiting Liverpool fans, with one window smashed. But Real midfielder Federico Valverde claims the ambush backfired.
Valverde, right, said: “It gave us extra motivation. We thought, ‘OK, now on the field we’re going to go out to kill and to leave everything you have on the pitch’.”
Liverpool slammed the “unacceptable and shameful behaviour” of those involved and apologised to the Spanish side. No one was hurt in the incident, which happened after hundreds of fans lined Anfield Road to greet the teams, with many flouting social distancing rules.
In 2018, Manchester City’s bus was hit by bottles and flares on the way to another Champions League last-eight tie at Anfield. The Reds were fined £17,000 by UEFA.
AFTER crashing out of the Champions League, now Liverpool have to navigate their way back into the competition next season.
But their fall from grace in the Premier League means they cannot take a single wrong turn during the climax to the race for the top four.
They also need a few of their rivals to hit the skids to stand any chance of returning to the Champions League.
Who could have imagined that when Jordan Henderson lifted the league trophy on the Kop last July, nine months on we would be talking about Jurgen Klopp’s side struggling to finish aboveWest Ham?
They trail David Moyes’ side by three points with seven games to go, but do have a favourable fixture list with Newcastle, Southampton, West Brom, Burnley and Crystal Palace among their opponents.
Wins over Wolves, Arsenal and Aston Villa in their past three league games have given them hope they can rescue something from the season.
“The most important thing is we concentrate on our level of performance,” said James Milner, above, in the aftermath of their Champions League exit against Real Madrid onWednesday.
“And if we perform with the intensity, desire and tempo that we played with tonight for the last league games, hopefully we can get into those top-four spots. But that’s the most important thing: that we replicate this form and these sorts of performances.
“That’s the one thing that has been missing, that consistency, so that’s what we need to get back and have a big push in these last few games and put this disappointment aside.”
If Liverpool fail to return to Europe’s top competition, it is not going to lead to an Anfield exodus. There is a different culture at the club now than the last time they failed to qualify, and they are seen across the continent as giants of the game once more.
The Reds are not expected to bid for any of Europe’s big guns this summer such as Kylian Mbappe or Erling Haaland so failing to reach the Champions League will not affect that. And it is unlikely to deter someone like RB Leipzig centre-back Ibrahima Konate – one of their preferred defensive targets – from joining.
But, of course, Liverpool want to be in the Champions League for the financial benefits and to play among the best on the continent.
Should they qualify, it would certainly add a silver lining to a disappointing campaign.
Thiago is starting to resemble a cellist in a grunge band at Liverpool. For the most important game of the club’s season on Wednesday night – the type of match he was signed from Bayern Munich for last September – he spent the first hour in a mask on the bench, watching a 35-year-old run around in his place.
It said a lot about how Jurgen Klopp has come to view the Spain international that, a week after Naby Keita was preferred for the first leg against Real Madrid, James Milner got the midfield gig ahead of him for the return. Thirty-five-year-olds can have their uses as midfielders – Luka Modric was a wonderfully calming influence for Real and, actually, Milner gave a strong lead for Liverpool before Thiago eventually came on to replace him, below. But Klopp’s lack of faith in his £20million signing as his side exited the Champions League was glaring.
In 23 appearances since his switch the player trumpeted as Liverpool’s missing link, the man who could give the stormtroopers the subtlety to unlock massed defences, has not contributed a goal or assist. None.
A midfield metronome setting the tempo and recycling possession does not always lend itself to stratospheric stats but at Bayern, in the five seasons before his transfer, Thiago averaged five goals and six assists a season.
The absence of any telling creative contribution since his move is jarring. It isn’t as if he makes up for it with his defensive contribution. Five bookings this season mark him out as something of a liability.
Perhaps if Thiago had walked into the club he expected to – the allpowerful one which mopped up the Champions League then the Premier League in successive seasons with their blitzkrieg football – it would have been easier.
Instead, with Liverpool a scatty imitation of their title-winning selves this season, he has found himself trying to assimilate with shifting sands all around him.
Virgil van Dijk has of course been a key miss, Jordan Henderson as well and far too many fit players have been inconsistent and well below their best across the season. But included front and centre in that group has been Thiago.
His bedding-in period was not helped by contracting Covid-19 when he arrived and then being sidelined for two-and-a-half months by a knee injury. But the clear run which has followed has failed to reveal the true Thiago.
Maybe the Premier League has proven too fast and physical for the 30-year-old. Maybe Liverpool’s need for speed does not suit him.
If that is the case it is disappointing because when you watch him on the ball it hits you in the face that he is a classy operator. Head up, Meerkatstyle, always looking for the next pass.
It is just at Liverpool the wavelengths seem to have been scrambled.
There was a telling example on Wednesday when he tried to pick out Andy Robertson as Liverpool desperately chased a goal only for the ball to run harmlessly out of play. He berated the Scotland captain for not taking the pass on his chest.
Thiago thinking one way, his team-mates thinking the other. The story of his stay on Merseyside so far. He remains a valuable piece in a jigsaw. Just not this one.