Big drama last night at the Anfield stadium between Liverpool and Inter Milan. The chaos with red cards and sluggish play by the hosts.
The round of 16 of the Champions League has already begun and with the second leg, this week’s matches are important to reaching the quarter-finals.
Liverpool already gain position in the quarter-final stage, but the way they lost the match yesterday and based on aggregate they passed through it was a disaster. The performance of Liverpool wasn’t up to the mark at all.
Inter Milan was dominating and performing in full determination to win the match. That’s the reason Alexis Sanchez went too far and booked himself a red card which undoubtedly affected the team.
Liverpool missed a lot of chances, even at one time Mo Salah got the clear open goal and he hit the post.
As mentioned, it was a big picture where hosts got several chances to demolish the Italian side under the goals but looked like players were in love with the goal post.
Inter Milan won the match, but Liverpool through to the quarter-finals
Anfield is one of the most promising and dangerous stadiums for the host to come and play. Because here Liverpool gets crazy and overshadows the visitors with their performance. But what happened last night didn’t look that way. Or you can say luck wasn’t with Liverpool’s side.
As from the beginning, Inter Milan was trying to score and taking big chances. Meanwhile, Liverpool got almost 12 shots and mainly hit the goal post. Mo Salah got the two brilliant chances where he could have scored but he hit the post twice.
Earlier in the first half, Liverpool got a free-kick and corner where one hit the crossbar. Defenders also looked not too much interested, in the first half Alexis Sanchez booked himself a yellow card for the brutal tackle to Thiago.
The first half went nil, but in the second half, Martinez got a clear chance from outside the box, and with the brilliant strike he gave his side great hope with the lead.
The stadium went wild, fans were cheering people thought now that it might be a comeback but within two minutes at 63 Sanchez got the red card for another tackle and there the whole thing fell.
In the 75th minute, Sadio Mane delivered a brilliant ball to Mo Salah he was in the right position but he hit the post again. The final whistle blew and Liverpool headed to the quarter-final. It was a historic night for Inter Milan to break the streak of Liverpool for 12 months unbeaten curse.
I hate losing it – Jurgen Klopp
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp undoubtedly reached the quarter-finals, but he claimed that he hates losing matches. At the post-match conference he said, “Peter Krawietz (Liverpool assistant manager) always says the art of football is to lose the right games,” said the Reds boss.
“I still hate it (losing). But if there was any kind of game we could have afforded to lose it was tonight because the main target of this competition is to get through.
“It’s not that I’m over the moon. But I’m really happy we went through it because when we saw the draw in the first place we thought ‘okay, that’s a tough one.
“The goal was conceded we shouldn’t have conceded even though the finish was brilliant, we could have done differently before then. “Over the two legs, we deserved it. That’s fine.
“We had some problem in the game for different reasons, one is the quality of the opponent, a really good football team.
“We know their set-up a little bit through facing Leeds with Bielsa but Inter have more quality and that makes it difficult.”
Klopp also cleared the air by stating that there are still enough areas where players can improve after the defeat at Anfield after 12 months. He said, “I didn’t like our counter-press,” he said. “I don’t think we won any balls back in the opening 20 minutes.
“You have to be expansive when you have possession and we lost the ball in strange moments and then we had to chase the situation. That’s not exactly how we wanted it.
“It’s a big if, but if we would have used our chances from set-pieces and other situations, it was a completely different story. It was a bit slapstick how we missed the chances in the end.
“It was more exciting than we wanted, not for long because after the red card we could control it” Klopp added: “These days happen, you just have to know about it and make sure you don’t do it again.
“We could have played better, but not too much better as the opponent was really good. “It’s fair that we are through against a really strong opponent, now let’s carry on.”
‘Reached to this stage for the first time in 11 years’ – Simon Inzaghi
Inter Milan coach Inzaghi praise his team for a great performance in the second leg, although they could have created more impact if they had performed in the first leg. He said, “We have got to this stage for the first time in 11 years and ended up perhaps playing the strongest team in Europe and we were their equals,” he said.
“We put in two tremendous performances, and in the San Siro we probably played even better than this evening.
“We played an extremely tough, physical, technical team that can put you in all sorts of trouble and we did well.
“I’m bitterer about what happened in the San Siro rather than tonight. I regret that result.” Players were furious when Sanchez got the second yellow card and was out of play. “Sometimes it needs just a single episode to change the course of a game.
“We played a great a game for 75 minutes at San Siro then conceded from a set-piece. In the first half from set-pieces, they created issues, and in the second half we began to get the upper hand and scored a goal, unfortunately, Sanchez got sent off.
“I haven’t looked at it in any great detail so it’s difficult to comment on it
“We feel upset about the fact we had a player sent off just when we were getting the upper hand in the game.”
On the other hand, Bayern Munich thrashed RB Salzburg with 7 goals and easily enters the race of quarter-finals. Tonight, Real Madrid will be facing Paris Saint-German in the second leg with the advantage of one goal for PSG. It’s the game that everyone’s eagerly waiting for, as Real Madrid has been dominated throughout the season.
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