MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
Liverpool blitz as five English clubs reach last 16 for first time
LiverpooL sealed their place in the last 16 of the Champions League with a 7-0 thrashing of Spartak Moscow as philippe Coutinho hit a hat-trick.
Liverpool join Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea and Tottenham in Monday’s draw for the knockout stages. it is the first time any country has had five clubs in the last 16 of the competition.
Manager Jurgen Klopp said: ‘i don’t mind who we play. i always seem to get real. We’re just happy to be in the next round. After a long time, Liverpool are there again.’
THIS is what Liverpool can do. This is why Jurgen Klopp was brought to Anfield. And this is why, as long as the German stays, there will always be hope that something special may eventually be built on Merseyside.
There are currently flaws in Klopp’s grand design. The Premier League table tells us that.
But here on a cold Anfield night were the exhilarating basics of the Klopp prototype. Energetic, intuitive, hypnotic passing football with a devastating cutting edge.
Liverpool’s football could have sliced open a sealed envelope and would not have looked any prettier had it been painted in watercolour. It was terrific to watch and for the Russians of Spartak Moscow it proved impossible to play against.
That much was evident in the scoreline. Spartak are the champions of Russia and as such are no mugs. But their credibility was swept away on a night when Klopp’s team took their goal tally in qualifying to a staggering 23. This is a record for an English team in Europe.
To say Liverpool are on a decent run of goals is like saying Australia may be slight favourites for the Ashes. They have scored 33 times in their last 10 games — beginning with their 7-0 victory away at Maribor in this competition.
‘Nobody could have imagined this,’ said Klopp last night. ‘It was an all- or-nothing night for both teams but we started perfectly and showed that we are really difficult to play against when we go into the next gear.’
Liverpool’s journey through Group E had already shown us the best and worst of them. They scored three in the first half at Sevilla recently but still drew the game.
So Liverpool had to win last night to top the group and draw to make sure they went through to the next round. So, in theory, it could have been a nervy affair.
Instead it was 90 minutes of gilded Liverpool football, a night Spartak were embarrassed and dismantled by the kind of devastating passing play that is only possible when you are blessed with a certain kind of player.
Here, the four leaders of Liverpool’s orchestra were all present and in tune. Brighton manager Chris Hughton suggested after his team conceded five at the weekend that Philippe Coutinho, Roberto Firmino, Mo Salah and Saido Mane are a match for Pep Guardiola’s forward players at Manchester City.
Many people scoffed but here was evidence to at least provoke a credible discussion.
Spartak needed to start well but didn’t. They needed to still be in the game at half-time as that is when Liverpool can grow nervy. But the Russians gave away a needless penalty when Georgi Dzhikiya hauled down Salah in the third minute and Coutinho scored to set Liverpool on an upward trajectory.
For a while all the football flowed one way. Spartak were hustled from their stride by Liverpool’s hungry pressing and a superb passing move involving Mane, Salah and Firmino allowed Coutinho to sidefoot his second goal in only the 15th minute.
Spartak were back in to the selfharm routine four minutes later when Denis Glushakov gave the ball away in midfield and Mane crossed for Firmino to finish skilfully on the half-volley after the ball dropped from the shoulder of Spartak’s Serdar Tasci.
With the game all but won, Liverpool missed chances and looked as though they may coast through the second half ahead of a Premier League meeting with Everton this weekend.
But Salah set the tone for a second half of even greater punishment with a soaring scissor-kick immediately after the restart that would have torn the net from its rigging at the Kop End had it been struck a fraction harder.
As the night wore on, Liverpool’s enduring thirst for more was matched only by the flawlessness of some of their technique.
Coutinho’s hat-trick goal was a little fortunate — taking a deflection — but Liverpool cut Spartak open brutally again with 14 minutes left.
Emre Can sent Daniel Sturridge away and Mane dragged the ball into the empty goal from six yards as the substitute’s selfless cross threatened to pass just behind him.
Great players always have time when they are in a good place and that was the way it was here.
Coutinho and Firmino had already stroked balls into the goal as though they were taking part in a passing drill and Salah went about things the same way after leaving a defender on the seat of his pants with the latest in a series of adroit turns in the 85th minute. Teams are not supposed to score seven in Europe. The competition is supposed to be too tight.
But Liverpool can do special things when the mood takes them and, right now, Klopp has his team pointed towards opportunity.
On nights like this it is hard to imagine that we would ever doubt him.