RAPID REDS SINK SIMEONE
Jota and Mane shatter Atletico’s gameplan
THIS was supposed to be a challenging group for Liverpool and a look at the league tables across Europe confirms that feeling was not wrong.
Atletico Madrid are three points from top in Spain. Porto and Milan, meanwhile, are at the summit in their countries.
Between them the three clubs have made 16 Champions League or European Cup final appearances.
So, yes, there is some pedigree in Group B of this year’s competition and Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool have made a mockery of it.
This victory was the English club’s fourth on the bounce in Europe and sees them through to the next stage as group winners with two games left.
Already they have scored 13 goals.
It really has been some going and the other three clubs have now been left to scrap rather untidily for second place. Porto are in that position currently with a rather miserly five points.
So all this only serves to underline the impression already made in the Premier League that last season’s miseries are behind Liverpool.
From what we have seen in 16 unbeaten games this campaign, Liverpool can expect to go deep at home and in Europe.
Atletico may choose to take a sense of injustice away from Anfield after this one.
Diego Simeone’s team do not usually need an excuse and the first-half sending-off of their Brazilian defender Felipe was as bizarre as anything we have witnessed on the green acres of a football field for quite some time.
His trip on Sadio Mane 10 minutes before half-time was a yellow card offence at best.
Instead Dutch referee Danny Makkelie, after some delay and consideration, sent him off.
A part-time police inspector from Rotterdam, heaven knows what Makkelie does when he sees a double parked car.
The truth is, though, that Atletico looked well out of this game by the time Felipe walked the long walk.
Yes, Liverpool had conceded a two-goal lead when these teams met in Spain last month before eventually winning 3-2.
Yes, Atletico had looked the more likely team when Antoine Griezmann was sent off — correctly on that occasion — with the scores level in the second half of that one.
But here it never looked likely that Liverpool’s early advantage — so clinically and feverishly taken — would be annulled.
Klopp’s European champions of 2019 seem to have a recognisable spirit and lustre about them in the club’s favourite competition this season and it was in evidence at least for the first hour here.
The Kop sounded as though it had not forgotten that Atletico knocked Liverpool out here in the spring of 2020.
Much has happened since that night and football has not seemed terribly important during many of those intervening months.
Nevertheless, Liverpool began as though they too had sporting revenge in mind, too, and once Diogo Jota and Mane blew them into another early lead they never really looked back.
In Madrid two weeks ago, Liverpool’s early goals arrived in the eighth and 13th minutes. Here, they had to wait a little longer but the blows were felt just as deeply by the Spanish team.
Jota was first to prosper just before the quarter-hour and it was very much a striker’s goal.
Trent Alexander-Arnold’s cross from the right was a good one but it was Jota’s movement that was key, the Portuguese player outwitting three defenders to head in from six yards.
Anfield was alive by now, the touchpaper of the game lit at least in part by some enthusiastic Spanish harassing of Mane. The referee already seemed a little excitable and he was to prove himself exactly that.
Before all that, though, was a lot more activity in and around the Atletico penalty area. Liverpool were finding progressive passage down their right side and it was from there that goal No 2 arrived.
Mane actually started the move, muscling a defender out of the way before funnelling the ball to Jordan Henderson in a central area.
The Liverpool captain was then able to feel Alexander-Arnold and his low cross-shot was anticipated by Mane and rammed home with a side foot.
After the events of the first game, Liverpool knew better that to presume their work was done. They could have stretched the lead as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain whipped a shot wide and then Mo Salah — in devilish form on his flank — shot when he really should have played Jota in through the middle.
And then came madness. Felipe’s trip on Mane in the 36th minute was deliberate and his apparent refusal to come forward to accept what he doubtless presumed to be a yellow card rather childish.
But the red card that followed was as peculiar as anything we have seen. The Brazilian — serenaded by cries of ‘Adios’ from the Kop as he left the scene — had every right to be dismayed.
Luis Suarez — once of Liverpool of course — was booked for
complaining and nobody was surprised. Then before half-time Salah’s low swerving shot was palmed away by Jan Oblak, as was a header from Jota.
There were early chances in the second half, too.
Jota was played clear and scored only for VAR to call him offside. Then, in quick succession, Salah was denied when clear and Joel Matip and Jota missed when they should not have.
Suarez — unkindly and unfairly booed all night by the home support — actually beat Liverpool goalkeeper alisson with a deflected volley with more than half an hour remaining.
Had that stood then the mood might just have changed. But it didn’t. a VAR offside once again.
it was, in truth, a rare atletico counter. They were second best by a distance here.
Their own fight to qualify for the knockout stages goes on.
JURGEN KLOPP hailed Liverpool’s professionalism as they secured their place in the Champions League knockout phase with two games to spare. The 2-0 dismissal of Atletico Madrid means Liverpool are unbeaten in 25 games — stretching back to March — and that equals a club record that was set by Bob Paisley’s then reigning European champions over a nine-month period in 1982. Crucially, they are into the last 16 without needing anything from games against Porto and AC Milan, and Klopp (right) was delighted with the attitude his players showed in subduing Atletico, who once again finished a game with 10 men after defender Felipe was sent off for fouling Sadio Mane. ‘If Bobby Firmino had not gone off with a hamstring it would have been much better night,’ said Klopp. ‘From what I saw when the draw was made, I wouldn’t have expected this would