A win for Liverpool in their opening game in the Champions League Group of Death against Milan at Anfield, but the three points shouldn’t mask some worrying traits in the game that don’t augur well for the rest of the season in this tournament and in the Premier League.Manager Jurgen Klopp made a number of significant changes in the lineup, dropping Sadio Mané for Divock Origi, who impressed before going off injured, bringing in Joe Gomez for Virgil van Dijk at centre half, Henderson for Thiago Alcantara and Naby Keita for the long-term absentee Harvey Elliott. Kostas Tsimikas can count himself unlucky not to start ahead of Andy Robertson, the Greek international having shown in the first two games of the season against Norwich and Burnley that he’s a more than a competent deputy for Scotland’s captain.
The changes looked justified in the first half hour of the game as Liverpool completely dominated their Italian opponents, going one up after nine minutes when a shot from the edge of the area from Trent Alexander Arnold defected off Fikayo Tomori and ended in the back of the net.
Liverpool’s dominance should have been rewarded further when they were awarded a penalty for handball, but Mo Salah’s weak effort was easily saved by Mike Maignan and the Reds’ seemed to lose momentum.
Still, no one could foresee what transpired in the last five minutes of the half, when Milan, having barely crossed into Liverpool’s half, with two attacks down the right, which exposed once again Alexander Arnold’s defensive deficiencies, particularly when he doesn’t have van Dijk to protect him, scored two goals, the first by Ante Rebic, the second from Brahim Diaz, making a mockery of all Liverpool’s efforts in the first half.
The second half got underway with Milan on the front foot and a clever corner saw Theo Hernandez prod the ball passed Alisson Becker, only for the linesman to raise his flag for offside to save Liverpool the humiliation of going down 3-1.
Having been saved by the offside flag at one end, it looked like Salah’s clever finish from a smart chip from Origi would also fall victim to the linesman’s flag, with the Egyptian striker mutedly celebrating as VAR checked to see that the official had made the right non-decision. He had, the goal stood.
Relieved that they were still in the game, Liverpool upped the ante and put Milan under intolerable pressure. Thus, on 69 minutes a corner from Alexander Arnold fell to Jordan Henderson on the edge of the box and his controlled strike skated passed the Milan keeper to put the Reds ahead again.
James Milner, Alex Oxlade Chamberlain, Thiago and Curtis Jones all came on to see out the game and there were few serious scares and Liverpool even found themselves in a couple of promising positions to put the tie to bed, but both Jones and Mané – who had come on for Origi and whose cameo was another frustrating exercise – weren’t decisive enough to take advantage of the situation.
The next two games in the group are away to Porto and then away to Atletico Madrid, both will undoubtedly be tougher games for Liverpool and they’ll have to be a lot better defensively to come through them unscathed. It’s hard to imagine that van Dijk will start these crucial matches on the bench.
