Liverpool couldn’t have played much worse during last night’s surprise defeat against Atalanta.
The Reds started the game poorly and went downhill from there. Up against the Italian’s man-marking system, Liverpool’s players just didn’t seem to know how to react.
There were still one or two bright spots – Harvey Elliott earned praise from Peter Crouch but was rather bizarrely taken off at half-time.
In general though, Liverpool were about as bad as we’ve seen them under Jurgen Klopp. In the end, they could have lost by even more than the three goals they did.
Nevertheless, it’s hard to shake the feeling that if could all have been different had an early chance gone in for the Reds. And according to Liverpool legend Steve Nicol, it really should have done.
Steve Nicol slams ‘sloppy’ Darwin Nunez
As it has been a little too often this season, the main culprit for missing chances for Liverpool last night was Darwin Nunez.
With the score at 0-0, the Uruguayan was picked out by a perfect through ball from Curtis Jones. One on one with the goalkeeper and at a favourable angle, Nunez had to score.
The 24-year-old is more than capable from that kind of range, but is also guilty of mixing the sublime with the ridiculous.
On this occasion, the latter won out. Nunez got the finish horribly wrong, attempting to dink the goalkeeper and instead firing quite comfortably wide.
As it turned out, it was a key moment in the match. And speaking to ESPN FC following the 3-0 loss, Nicol admitted that he’d been ‘annoyed’ by Nunez’s wastefulness.
“Nunez had a chance in the first-half and I was annoyed with the way he went about it,” says the pundit. “He was trying to just dink it over the goalkeeper, but it looked so nonchalant, careless and sloppy. That really annoyed me the way he tried to do it.”
Who else struggled for Liverpool
This was the best chance Nunez had all game, and really should have hit the net. But aside from the missed opportunity, the Uruguay international didn’t have a particularly good match in general.
He was far from the only one in red to struggle, though. Kostas Tsimikas was perhaps the worst of a bad bunch and was deservedly hooked at half-time. On the other side of the defence, Joe Gomez put in the kind of listless display which he seemed to have eradicated this season.
Further forward, Wataru Endo couldn’t deal with the tight marking subjected to him and while he started brightly, Cody Gakpo simply was not effective. We could go on.
So, a bad day at the office all around for Liverpool. Had that Nunez chance gone in as it should have though, and it could have been different. Nicol won’t be the only one annoyed with the Reds’ No.9 this morning.