Kieran Trippier has defended Diego Simeone, after the Atletico Madrid boss come under fire for parking the bus against Liverpool in the Champions League.
He claims that if anyone tries to attack the Reds they’re going to get leathered. “If you go [to Anfield] and go toe-to-toe with Liverpool, you’re going to get beat 6-0,” the England full-back told the Mirror (via The 42).
“You see pundits complaining because we did defend, but did they expect us to go there and play attacking football? You need to go there with a plan and we did that.
“We did have to defend, but the most important thing is that we got the win.”
Atleti frustrated Liverpool at the Wanda Metropolitano by scoring an early goal and then sitting on a 1-0 lead for over 85 minutes.
Simeone opted for a similar approach at Anfield in the second leg, but wasn’t as successful at keeping us out. A goal by Gini Wijnaldum sent us into extra time.
We thought we’d won in when Bobby Firmino netted for the first time at home this season to make it 2-0 on the night, but the celebrations didn’t last long.
Substitute Marcos Llorente scored two goals to effectively finish the tie off – with Alvaro Morata rubbing salt in the wounds before the full-time whistle to make it 4-2 on aggregate.
Jan Oblak’s performance at Anfield often goes under the radar though, the Serbian put in one of the finest goalkeeping performances over 120 minutes and is a gargantuan reason why the Spaniards progressed.