After Second Galatasaray Defeat Are Liverpool Still Well-Placed in the Champions League? | OneFootball

It has been a slog of a season. It would be great to dress it up some other way, but it’s simply not possible. From the moment that the tragic news about the death of Diogo Jota broke, nothing has been even remotely as you might expect a football season to be.

What that means is that it is all but impossible to analyse the season in any meaningful way, given we have no real idea what impact the loss of Jota has had on the players, the manager and the staff at the football club. What we do know is that both Andy Robertson and Caoimhín Kelleher have made references to it, but was it part of the reason Liverpool lost to Galatasaray?

Poor Performances All Over the Pitch

First and foremost, it is important to acknowledge that the performance at RAMS Park in Turkey wasn’t even close to good enough. The problem is, it is really difficult to point to any specific player as having played well enough to merit some positivity. Giorgi Mamardashvili did well in goal, whilst also being quite lucky that he didn’t concede a penalty or a second goal. Ibrahima Konaté has enjoyed a mixed season, to be kind to him, having improved massively before appearing as if he didn’t know what the sport of football even was last night, let alone how to play it. Very few people involved in the club emerge with any kind of credit.

Although the manager made all of the right changes, in my opinion at least, and they came at around the right time, it would be difficult to suggest that Arne Slot is deserving of praise when you consider how things panned out. There were numerous moments when the defence looked more like they were doing an impression of a slapstick performance than a well-oiled machine, which included when Andy Robertson replaced Milos Kerkez and immediately gave the ball to the opposition. All in all, it was not a good performance, yet it says something that we were ultimately unlikely not to escape with a draw.

A Difficult Away Game

One of the things that I have found mildly annoying when I’ve read comments about Liverpool’s performance last night is the outright refusal of people to acknowledge that Galatasaray is a really difficult away game. The Turkish side hasn’t lost a knockout home game in the European Cup/Champions League since the 1970s, which is a span taking in 11 different home performances. It was incredibly noisy in the stadium every time the Reds were on the ball, so I don’t think it’s out of the realms of the possible that the players simply couldn’t hear each other. That would certainly help to explain the lack of communication at times.

Of course, too many people who really should know better have simply decided that Arne Slot isn’t good enough as Liverpool manager, happily ignoring the fact that he won a Premier League title last season and has had to deal with an horrendous amount of context this time out. As a result, those ‘fans’ aren’t willing to give an inch over a game like last night, instead being more than happy to pull out the pitchforks and act as if that is our season over. In truth, the campaign is definitely on a knife edge thanks to the defeat and the fact that we’ve drawn Manchester City away in the Champions League, but last night deserves context.

It’s Only Half-Time

Even the supporters that, like myself, are more than willing to give Slot the benefit of the doubt and look at the context surrounding our season have to admit that we’re not in a great position right now. It isn’t exactly outrageous to suggest that our chances of progressing in the FA Cup are slim, whilst the opponents that are likely to come further down the line in the Champions League mean that even if we qualify for the next round, we’re not likely to make it much further. We will end up going up against either Paris Saint-Germain or Chelsea in the quarter-finals, then one of Real Madrid, Manchester City or Bayern Munich in the semis.

Having said that, the important thing is that we’re in the conversation at all and you never really know what can happen in knockout football; after all, we shouldn’t forget that we had to make it past Juventus and Chelsea on the route to the final in 2004-2005. It is only half-time in the tie, so a 1-0 deficit is nothing when the Anfield leg is still to come. Although Galatasaray ultimately progressed from their tie against Juventus, they did lose the second-leg 3-2 after winning the first 5-2, and we saw their vulnerabilities time and time again last night. The only question is whether or not we can be clinical enough to take advantage.