Liverpool, the runners-up, is looking for a new start when it hosts Ajax Amsterdam in the European Champions League on Tuesday.
And after nearly three months of competing for a historic quartet, Liverpool finds itself in a very embarrassing position, after its ordeal increased by receiving a humiliating defeat last Wednesday in the first round of the first group competitions at Napoli, Italy, 1-4.
The defeat of the German coach Jurgen Klopp’s team at the “Diego Armando Maradona” stadium revealed the extent of the problem faced by the “red” at the beginning of this season.
“I watched the match many times and it was a real horror movie,” Klopp said Monday in the press conference on the sidelines of the match against Ajax about the Napoli meeting, adding, “It was the worst match we played since I was here. We suffered severe defeats, and everyone remembers (the 7-2 defeat against Aston Villa and others), but we did even a little in those matches. As for this, there is nothing.”
The issue is not only related to losing the third time in a row from the stronghold of Naples, but that the team is in seventh place in the Premier League after 6 stages.
Klopp did not want to delve into the analysis of the crisis the team is going through, saying, “I need time to say the right things, but the situation is not 100% clear now.”
Wednesday’s defeat was Liverpool’s biggest continental defeat since losing in the second round of the European Champion Clubs Cup against its next rival Ajax 1-5 in 1966.
Klopp’s team won only two of the seven matches it played this season, locally and continentally, in a series that included a 1-2 loss to rivals Manchester United.
The Reds team suffers from a slow start problem, not only this season, but an extension of last season, as it was only once in the last 14 games in all competitions that the player to advance goal.
“It seems we have to reproduce ourselves,” Klopp told BT Sport. “A lot of things are missing. The fun part is that we need to do this in the middle of the Premier League season and the Champions League campaign.”
And due to the postponement of the Premier League matches over the past weekend to mourn the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Klopp got more time to prepare for Tuesday’s meeting against an attacking team with distinction that brought to mind the golden generations of Ajax, the last of which led the team to its fourth title in the continental competition The mother in 1995 and into the final the following year.
remarkable brilliance
Despite losing the efforts of influential players such as Brazilian Anthony, Argentine Lisandro Martins (Manchester United), Ivory Coast scorer Sebastian Haller (Borussia Dortmund, Germany), Rhein Grafenberg, Moroccan Nassir Mazraoui (Bayern Munich), Cameroon goalkeeper Andre Onana (Inter), and even his coach Eric Ten Hag (Manchester). United), Ajax made a great start in this group by scoring a clean four against Rangers, whose match in this round against its guest, Napoli, was postponed to Wednesday for organizational reasons related to Queen Elizabeth’s funeral.
In light of the brilliance of players such as Stephen Berkhaus, Ghanaian Mohamed Kaddous and newcomer Stephen Berchvin, Ajax is presenting a wonderful attacking performance under the leadership of its new coach Alfred Schroeder with remarkable defensive solidity, by scoring 22 goals in its last six matches against receiving one goal, which constitutes a major threat to Liverpool.
“We don’t work as a team,” the German coach admitted. We are not playing well enough. This is clear, this is clear and everyone sees it. We are playing in the strongest league in the world and we have a strong group in the Champions League, but that is the task that we have to deal with.”