Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher has earmarked the club’s long-standing issue of lacking creativity in midfield as a key reason we fell to Atletico Madrid in the Champions League this week.
The Reds lost 1-0 to the La Liga giants in a gritty affair, and the former centre half believes a spark to link midfield to attack was needed in the Spanish capital. “It was a really frustrating night for Liverpool,” he told Viasport (as per the Metro).
“We knew how Atletico would play, Jurgen Klopp knew. But the big thing you don’t want to do in games like this is concede the first goal – and so very early from a set-piece.
“Sometimes it happens, little bit of luck and it rebounds and they go 1-0 up. Liverpool didn’t get too frustrated but they couldn’t create anything, they don’t have real creativity, certainly in midfield. That’s always been a problem.”
He’s probably referring to the fact that we haven’t replaced Philippe Coutinho, even though we play a different style of football now than when we did a couple of years ago.
But Jurgen Klopp may have thought something like Carra as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was introduced, in place of Fabinho, to give us some more fire-power, but Atleti were able to shut us out.
“At 1-0 I still think Liverpool have a great opportunity of going through. If it had gone 2-0 I think Liverpool would have been nearly out,” Carra continued. “So at 1-0 Atletico deserved it, they had the better chances, but Liverpool will be a lot better at Anfield.”
It’ll be a different game at Anfield – the crowd will be right behind the lads, and we will likely see the same Liverpool that fought back against the mighty Barcelona on their way to the Champions League title.
As Jurgen Klopp said after the game, it’s half-time – we’ve got three weeks to prepare how we’re going to approach the game, and I’m certain the boss will put together a master plan to unlock Atleti steel doors.