Liverpool fate hangs in the balance
DRAW NOW NEEDED IN SALZBURG AS CRISIS-TORN ITALIANS STAND FIRM
After trailing until after the hour-mark last night, Liverpool secured a point to avert a qualification crisis — although their struggle demonstrated how fragile a Champions League campaign can be.
the dropped points leave them requiring a draw from their last fixture in Salzburg, who won emphatically last night against Group e’s whipping boys Genk. they could do without the prolonged tension.
It might have been an Italian club beset by internal strife — players fined, a training camp spurned — but it was the same intransigent, dangerous Napoli who Liverpool have come to know. the visitors showed defensive qualities, a capacity to tackle, to block and to form two disciplined banks of resistance.
Napoli, the only team to have prevented Jurgen Klopp’s side from scoring in the past 25 matches, immediately revealed their defensive capability.
there was the wonderfully balanced Senegalese defender Kalidou Koulibaly rising to head away Jordan Henderson’s dangerous cross and later repelling the singular exquisite Liverpool moment of the first half — a return ball from roberto firmino’s heel which sent Sadio Mane into the left-hand side of the box.
there was the virtually prone Mario rui taking the ball from Mo Salah — who struggled to make any first-half impact — just as the egyptian threatened to get past him.
the worst excesses of VAr made a farce of an opening goal which illustrated that the Italians had brought a troubling counterattacking dimension, too.
two separate reviews were required after Dries Mertens had accelerated past a statuesque Liverpool defence and allowed Giovanni di Lorenzo’s 20-yard ball to take one bounce before expertly drilling it past Alisson from a tight angle.
there was a suspicion — unjustified — that the Belgian had fouled Virgil van Dijk as he won the ball aerially in the first place. Van Dijk had simply landed awkwardly on his right foot after the two had leapt together and Dejan Lovren then failed to cover Mertens’ run.
the goal stood and then the game was stopped to examine if Mertens had been offside.
Liverpool’s capacity to retrieve the most hopeless situations — ‘the harder you practise, the luckier you get’ as Henderson had observed, quoting Gary Player in the programme — meant that Anfield did not seem beset by anxiety.
But fabinho’s early departure with a freak ankle injury, sustained when forward Hirving Lozano fell into him, upset Liverpool’s rhythm.
Lozano and Mertens were a constant threat in Carlo Ancelotti’s throwback 4-4-2.
Andy robertson was second in the match-up with Di Lorenzo down Liverpool’s left.
the closest Liverpool came to a goal was James Milner’s wriggling run to bring a near-post save from keeper Alex Meret.
Klopp felt a mounting agitation which saw him booked in the closing minutes of the half after midfielder Allan jumped over Mane.
It was the first time in five years that Liverpool had trailed at half-time in a Champions League home match and the second half was barely ten minutes old when Klopp ripped up the system.
Joe Gomez, struggling to make any kind of attacking impact down the right in his first outing since the raheem Sterling saga with england, departed and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was introduced to provide the midfield bite that Liverpool lacked.
Henderson became an advanced utility right-back.
the impact was instantaneous but the frustrations persisted. Oxlade-Chamberlain drove forward to measure a cross which Kostas Manolas misjudged but firmino, lurking behind him, headed wide — a desperate error in the circumstances.
robertson advanced to find Salah, whose carefully placed effort fell weakly into Meret’s arms.
But five minutes past the hourmark, Lovren found the equaliser, rising above Mertens in the centre of the area to meet a Milner corner and head it into the top, left-hand corner of the net.
the Italians claimed an infringement on Mertens. there was none, although VAr might have awarded Salah a penalty as Koulibaly wrestled with him while Liverpool looked for a winner.
Henderson admitted afterwards: ‘We’d have liked to have won tonight to finish the job off. Napoli made it difficult. We’re still in a decent position. there were times when we played good stuff. We were searching for the second one but couldn’t find it.’
LIVERPOOL (4-3-3): Alisson; Gomez (Oxlade-Chamberlain 57), Lovren, Van Dijk, Robertson; Henderson, Fabinho (Wijnaldum 19), Milner (Alexander-Arnold 78); Salah, Firmino, Mane. Subs not used: Adrian, Lallana, Shaqiri, Origi.
NAPOLI (4-4-2): Meret; Maksimovic, Manolas, Koulibaly, Mario Rui; Di Lorenzo, Allan, Zielinski (Younes 85), Fabian Ruiz; Mertens (Elmas 81), Lozano (Llorente 72).
Subs not used: Ospina, Callejon, Elmas, Luperto, Gaetano.
Booked: Koulibaly. Man of the match: Dejan Lovren. Referee: Carlos Del Cerro Grande (Spain). Attendance: 53,000.