THE Fab Four ensured England’s famous five will remain in the Champions League.
Give Roberto Firmino, Mo Salah, Sadio Mane and Philippe Coutinho time and space and they will absolutely destroy you.
And last night, the Anfield poster boys delivered to take their club into the knockout stages for the first time in nine seasons, when they lost in the quarter-finals to Chelsea. It is questionable how long all of the Premier League’s teams remain in the knockout stages. But for an unprecedented number of our clubs to reach the last 16, regardless of their opponents and ease of the groups, is a bloody good achievement.
Since Chelsea’s win over Bayern Munich in the final I 2012, the performances of English clubs in this competition have been an embarrassment when you consider the ridiculous sums spent on transfers and wages. Yet this season, there has been a shift in momentum. Football goes in cycles and we are surely approaching an era of some English success, even though Barcelona, PSG and Real Madrid will have other ideas. Liverpool ended up winning Group E which was basically a strange set of teams with none of them able to defend properly, hence of string of really weird results. But Jurgen Klopp’s team were the ones who remained unbeaten – despite some odd performances –as they were remarkably strong up front.
This was certainly proved in this battering of Spartak which brought their overall tally to 23, the most ever scored by an English team in the Champions League. Whoever Liverpool face in the next round, the opponents will not fancy their chances against Salah, who has arguably been the best player in the Premier League this season.
Coutinho, who scored a hat-trick inside 50 minutes, is returning back to his best after ending his summer sulk after failing to land a move to Barcelona. Centre-forward Firmino scores more goals than some give him credit for – his third goal last night was a 12th of the season.
And Mane, although having slipped out of the team recently, remains a massive goal threat and remains incredibly important to Klopp’s offensive might. He illustrated this by hammering an awesome finish two minutes inside the second half while he also got the sixth.
The problem is Liverpool’s defence when they face anyone decent. But at least now, Klopp has January to maybe make one decent addition to the back four ahead of the knockout games in February. Equally, in the short-term, they will go into Sunday’s Merseyside derby against Everton full of confidence as they look to wipe the smile off Sam Allardyce’s face at Everton.
Two weeks earlier, Liverpool – who also put seven past Maribor – led Sevilla by three goals after 30 minutes yet due to a display of brainless defending, ended up drawing. But in a breathless and brilliant start, albeit helped by the Russians who appeared as though they had not seen much of Liverpool’s four key men this season, Liverpool nailed their spot in the last 16.
The fact Coutinho scored twice and Firmino after 19 minutes ensured that, even by Liverpool’s standards of putting their supporters through the wringer, there was not going to be a ridiculously-nervous second half. Spartak had lost just once in their subsequent 12 games while Liverpool were unbeaten in eight matches since their massive kick up the backside, the 4-1 loss at Spurs on October 22. Klopp admitted he wanted his team to attack from the start but even he would not have expected to see his team awarded a penalty after two minutes and 52 seconds. Coutinho’s cross looked harmless but defender Georgi Dzhikiya lost the plot and put his arm around Salah who won the spot-kick.
Dzhikiya was handed a booking by Polish referee Pawel Sokolnicki for his stupid challenge and Coutinho – who scored in the draw in Moscow – sent keeper Aleksandr Selikhov the wrong way even though the Brazilian star was not even looking at the ball.
Can picked up a needless caution for a slightly high challenge on Luiz Adriano meaning he will miss the next game due to suspension but that minor blow had no effect on Liverpool humiliating Spartak.
Liverpool’s second goal was absolutely outstanding even though they made it look damn easy.
From The Sun
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