Liverpool’s quest for Champions League glory began in the worst possible way after their 4-1 loss to Napoli on Wednesday night.
The Reds were thrashed 4-1 by the Serie A outfit on Wednesday night at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona. A brace from Piotr Zielinski supported by goals from Andre-Franck Zambo Anguissa and substitute Giovanni Simeone wrapped up the win, with Luis Diaz scoring a consolation.
Liverpool found themselves 3-0 down at half time, and could have easily conceded more. Alisson Becker saved a penalty from Victor Osimhen, with other chances being wasted by the home side, before they scored a fourth shortly after the interval.
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Plenty of national media outlets were in Naples to watch Liverpool’s defeat. Here is a round-up of what they had to say.
Andy Hunter, via The Guardian
“A rupture occurred in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. It was Liverpool, ripped apart and destroyed by Napoli on a humiliating night when Jürgen Klopp’s team resembled Champions League novices rather than seasoned finalists from three of the past five years.
“One of Liverpool’s heaviest European defeats was the deserved end product of arguably the worst European performance of Klopp’s near seven-year reign. Certainly, it is hard to think of a rival for that unwanted accolade. The visitors were torn open from the outset as their winless streak in Naples continued, but in far more alarming fashion than their last two group stage defeats here under Klopp.
“Klopp stated before kick-off that he wanted Liverpool to extinguish the emotion and aggression that Napoli feed off inside their stadium through football principles and compact defending. His players never got the memo. They poured oil on the incendiary atmosphere inside Stadio Diego Armando Maradona instead with a passive, chaotic performance in which their defence was shredded time and again. By the time Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa doubled Napoli’s lead in the 31st minute it could easily have been 5-0 to Luciano Spalletti’s vibrant side. The hosts sliced through at will in the first half. Liverpool, abysmal from back to front, offered little resistance.
“Klopp’s instructions were almost redundant after merely 42 seconds. Amir Rrahmani and Stanislav Lobotka brought the ball out of defence with casual ease before Giovanni Di Lorenzo’s pass sent Victor Osimhen racing into a 50-50 with Alisson. The pacy striker got there first but swept a shot from a tight angle against the outside of a post. Napoli had revealed their hand to play quick, incisive passes behind the Liverpool defence. The visitors paid no attention.”
Richard Jolly, via The Independent
“As Thomas Tuchel can testify, this was an awful day for Champions League-winning German managers. If Barcelona ranks as Liverpool’s finest and famous European game under Jurgen Klopp, this was surely the worst and the most worrying. Liverpool have touched greatness at times in continental competitions in his reign, but they were gruesome as they were garrotted by Luciano Spalletti’s inspired Napoli team. It is a hat-trick of defeats in Naples in the Klopp era, but this was the heaviest and the most harrowing. Unlike the previous two, this seemed to highlight deeper problems.
“There was Liverpool’s now trademark slow start but without the salvation of improvement thereafter. There were a collection of errors, with a shambolic defence found glaringly wanting while the lack of a functioning midfield compounded their problems. There were individual errors and a lack of cohesion among the collective. The side Klopp famously christened ‘mentality monsters’ looked lacking in spirit. Only Luis Diaz, who mounted a one-man attempt at an unlikely rescue job, should escape censure.
“In the broader picture, Liverpool have twice lost in Naples before and qualified from Champions League groups but they scarcely resembled the side who almost completed a clean sweep of trophies last season. They were ramshackle and ragged. Four goals could have been seven. Not because of the number of chances as their clarity. There was a shot that hit the woodwork, a missed penalty and a goal-line clearance. Liverpool are rarely opened up as often, as easily; at times, as embarrassingly. Whether Virgil van Dijk or Joe Gomez, James Milner or Trent Alexander-Arnold, this was a terrible night for players who have produced far better time and again.”
Dominic King, via the Mail Online
“You would hope those Liverpool fans who followed Jurgen Klopp’s advice in May, to “book your hotels” in Istanbul for the 2023 Champions League final, secured refundable rates.
“In the moments after the defeat to Real Madrid in Paris, an emotional Klopp pledged to oversee Liverpool’s return to the biggest club game in the world within 12 months and urged despondent supporters to follow his dream.
“On this evidence, Liverpool will be lucky to make the knockout stages in 2023. The tournament that has often been a wonderful and happy diversion from domestic matters could not have started in a worse possible fashion for Klopp and his players here in Naples.
“This, frankly, was an embarrassment, a display so wretched and disjointed that it made it easy to label this the worst European performance of the Klopp era. All credit to Napoli, who were young and aggressive and dynamic, for inflicting this damage but Liverpool certainly assisted them.
“Three goals down at half-time – an Alisson Becker penalty save stopped the scoreline being even more emphatic – it was scarcely believable that it was only 103 days since Liverpool were going head-to-head with Madrid, looking to conquer Europe for a seventh time.
“How the issues are mounting for Klopp, who bore the dumbfounded look of a man who had just seen his house collapse in front of him. The biggest compliment he would have given to Napoli, privately, is that they did everything he would want his own team to do.”
James Gheerbrant, via The Times
“Up to this point, Liverpool’s start to the season had been bad in a rusty, frustrating sort of way: a remodelled team clanking through the low gears, missing grace and fluency. This was something else entirely: a wild, tempestuous undoing, the sense of a once-great team caving in on itself, which called to mind Jürgen Klopp’s disastrous final season with Borussia Dortmund. Has the seven-year hitch struck again? It has been hitherto unthinkable, but this was a sensationally, catastrophically, operatically bad performance, one whose defining motif was how utterly vulnerable Liverpool were against straightforward passes in behind.
“It is strange and startling, the thinness of the line between an elite defence and an inept one. Last season, Liverpool conceded 26 goals in 38 games, the joint-best figure in Europe’s leading leagues. Here they looked like conceding every ten minutes.
“What this defeat exposed was just how precarious Liverpool’s defensive construct has been, how many cracks a fortress can conceal. Last season, they suffered the second-most through balls in the Premier League, counting on the pace of Virgil van Dijk and the one-v-one brilliance of Alisson to redeem the fundamental frailty of the high line. Here that fragile covenant broke like a dam rent by deluge.”
Paul Gorst, via the Liverpool Echo
"The football handbook isn't exactly clear on when a blip becomes a full-blown crisis. But Liverpool surely veered into that territory at some point during a wretched 90 minutes at Napoli.
"Perhaps it was inside five minutes when, after striking the outside of the post just 42 seconds in through Victor Osimhen, Piotr Zielinski scored from the penalty spot following James Milner's handling?
"Maybe it arrived when Andre-Frank Anguissa sauntered beyond three players with a basic give-and-go before sliding it past Alisson Becker with just half an hour played?
"Or it could have been the moment Kvicha Kvaratskhelia skipped by Trent Alexander-Arnold in style before outmuscling Joe Gomez for Giovanni Simeone to convert?
"If your answer is none of the above, it will have been when Zielinski impudently clipped it over a floored Alisson for 4-0 just moments after the restart.
"Wherever your own judgement call lands, there can be little denial now that Liverpool's early season spluttering has evolved into something entirely more serious. This is now the most concerning period since early 2021 when they lost six home games on the bounce behind closed doors and a top-four finish looked like a pipe dream.
"This just doesn't happen to Liverpool. They lost only four of 63 games last term and one of those was ultimately meaningless as they eased past Inter on aggregate in the Champions League. That, though, is consigned to the past. In the here and now, the Reds are as ripe for a hiding as they have ever been under their current manager."
READ NEXT:
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