Liverpool did not cover themselves in glory during last night’s sobering defeat against Atalanta.
The Reds had gone into the Europa League quarter-final first-leg as favourites for the competition overall. They ended the 90 minutes hanging onto their place in it by a thread.
As Virgil van Dijk suggested in the wake of the 3-0 loss, overturning the tie is not beyond Liverpool. But it’s going to be incredibly, incredibly difficult.
In truth, the Reds have no one to blame but themselves. There were far too many under-performers on the day, with Darwin Nunez and Joe Gomez two to have taken flak in the media today. Nunez for missing the chance to put Liverpool in-front in the first-half, Gomez for trying to get them back in it with a wayward long-range effort.
And while TalkSPORT pundit Dean Saunders has piled a little more criticism onto Nunez’s broad shoulders, he’s also added another name to the mix, too.
Dean Saunders questions Cody Gakpo and Darwin Nunez
It was undoubtedly a poor miss from Nunez last night and only grew in significance as the game wore on. He just does that too often.
Had the Uruguayan buried Curtis Jones’ perfect through ball, the night could have been very different indeed for Liverpool.
Saunders, a Reds fan who also played for the club in the 1990’s, perhaps sums up most supporters’ beliefs though, when he says he never felt like Nunez would score. The pundit also goes on to bundle Cody Gakpo into that, saying he’d have the same feeling if it had been the Dutchman running through instead.
“Nunez, especially, I still can’t make my mind about him,” says Saunders. “Nunez when he gets in on goal I don’t think ‘goal’. Neither do I think that when Gakpo gets in.
“When they had Mane, Firmino, Salah – lethal the three of them. So Liverpool are creating chances and loads and loads of chances and they are missing.
“If they don’t win the league this year the manager will look at it and think are they scoring the fair ratio of chances we are creating? Is that the problem? And at the minute they are not scoring. Even Salah has not been as lethal as he normally is.”
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In terms of sheer numbers, you wouldn’t say that Liverpool are lacking anything in their forward line. However, they do feel to be missing too many chances.
Salah, for all the goals he scores, has never been the most clinical of finishers. Although Saunders is nostalgic about them, Mane and Firmino never were either.
Nunez has it in his locker to score copious amounts of goals, that’s for sure. But the 24-year-old is also guilty of missing some really big opportunities. Burying his goal last night could have swung the balance and made it go on to be a good night for Liverpool. Seasons rest on such misses.
Gakpo is probably the better finisher of the two, but you’re still never completely convinced by the Dutchman. Diogo Jota returning will help with this, but maybe Liverpool should think about investing in a proper hitman up front.