Adrian made a costly error during Liverpool’s Champions League exit last night.
Pat Nevin has claimed Adrian was the ‘only’ Liverpool player who was ‘panicking’ during his side’s Champions League round of 16 defeat to Atletico Madrid on Wednesday night, as he told BBC Radio 5 Live Sport (11/03/20 at 22:05 pm).
Roberto Firmino had put Liverpool ahead on aggregate in extra-time before Adrian’s errant pass resulted in Marcos Llorente equalising before he netted a brace and Alvaro Morata added a third to knock the European champions out of the competition.
When Liverpool were knocked out of the FA Cup by Chelsea recently, Adrian’s horrendous mistake led to Frank Lampard’s men opening the scoring, as he was made to pay once again last night.
Spates of injuries to the first-choice keeper, Alisson Becker, have hurt Liverpool this term, as Nevin shared what he noticed about Adrian in extra-time.
“I have no idea what he’s trying to do,” Nevin told BBC Radio 5 Live. “If you are a top-quality player, you don’t play it down blind into that area anyway. Terrible mistake by the goalkeeper.
“There have been some catastrophic [errors in recent weeks from goalkeepers] and that one is right up there with them – every time you watch it, it gets worse. No idea why you would play it into the most dangerous area of the pitch
“Quite simply, he panicked. And, he has been the only Liverpool player who’s been panicking out there.”
Adrian would no doubt get the backing of his teammates and manager, but there’s no doubt that he will feel like the world is on his shoulder.
On one hand, the Reds were slowly but surely working their way into the next round, only for Adrian’s error to hit them hard.
But, they did miss a number of guilt-edge chances during the game, and that 1-0 defeat in Madrid where they had an off day, has now come back to cost them.
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