Liverpool need to pull off another one of their famed European comebacks after losing 3-1 to Real Madrid on Tuesday night.
The Reds travelled to the Spanish capital in high spirits having beaten Arsenal 3-0 on Saturday night, but they were truly dismal against Real.
Vinicius Junior and Marco Asensio had Real 2-0 up in the first half, and whilst Mohamed Salah gave Liverpool both hope and an away goal, Vinicius added another to seal a 3-1 win.
Liverpool have come back from bigger deficits in the past, but this was another poor performance in a difficult season – and one player didn’t even make it to half time.
Midfielder Naby Keita was handed a surprise start in midfield, but was hooked before the break as Thiago Alcantara was brought on in his place.
Keita struggled, but was arguably no worse than any other Liverpool player in what was a disjointed first-half performance, meaning some were baffled by the change.
Still, this is another setback for Keita, who just can’t seem to find form and fitness with any kind of consistency, with Liverpool fans still waiting for the best of him almost three years since his Anfield career began.
Klopp spoke to Liverpool’s official website after the game, and admitted that he doesn’t like the situation because the substitution made it seem like he was blaming Keita for the poor performance, which wasn’t the case.
Klopp admitted that Keita was ‘not good’, and he had to make a tactical change to try and bring Liverpool back into the game.
“It was tactical, it was tactical,” said Klopp. “That’s now things I don’t like in the job, stuff like this. You do that and then it’s like the one player is responsible for the performance of the first half. Naby was not responsible for that.”
“He didn’t play for a while, especially not from the start, and these kind of things. We were not good in the game, Naby was not good in the game but we all saw the game so to be honest I could have made a few more changes in that moment. So it was not about Naby but I did it and I am now not happy about it because we talk about it like it was Naby’s responsibility. It was not. But it was tactical, that’s it,” he added.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
