Gary Lineker was left somewhat surprised by the nature of Villarreal’s first-half performance against Liverpool in the second leg of their Champions League semi-final.
The Merseysiders blew their two-goal advantage in the opening 45 minutes of action, providing little in the way of resistance in an outing that contrasted heavily with the first leg.
To Unai Emery’s men’s credit, the Yellow Submarine have more than earnt their lead at the half-time break, with a big response needed from the Anfield-based outfit.
We’d suspect changes will be due after half-time, with the midfield largely a passenger in a game that appears to have missed Jordan Henderson’s standard-setting and leadership skills in the middle of the park.
It’s not a tie that Jurgen Klopp’s men are dead and buried in, at the time of writing, though we’d imagine that a stern word or two in addition to some encouragement will have been dished out by the German.
At this stage in the competition, even with a two-goal lead, the reality of the situation is that our opposition deserve to have reached this point in the Champions League, and it will take a performance of world-class quality to secure passage through to the final in Paris.
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