Summary: Liverpool - Atalanta 3:0/Sport1
Jurgen Klopp's farewell campaign as Liverpool coach gained momentum in 2024 and turned from a regular season of the English club into a race for all the titles. It started off great with a league cup win, went on to a tough fight for the championship title, where they are second in the Premier League table on points with Arsenal, but then came the FA Cup elimination and tonight (Thursday) was a game that might be the turning point of this season with a 3:0 defeat To Atalanta in the quarterfinals of the Europa League in the team's first home loss at Anfield since February 2023.
For 14 months, the Mighty Reds' fortress stood firm against many teams, but it was Gasparini's Atalanta who managed to knock him down with a display of purpose against Klopp's humiliated defense. For Gasparini, it was the second victory over Liverpool at Anfield, and in the 43 matches played by the host coach at Anfield, he lost only 5 times - twice of which were against the away coach.
The captain of the Reds, Virgil van Dijk, who was part of the bad defensive performance, concluded: "It's a very disappointing evening for us. Too many personal mistakes that caused Atalanta to punish us. We can't crash like this, we have three more days already playing in the league. Tomorrow we will have to the change in thinking and to achieve the result we need in the Premier League."
The Dutchman also said regarding the chances of qualifying for the semi-finals: "If you don't have faith, there's no reason to go to Italy."
The coach also couldn't explain the bad performance: "Nothing positive I can say about the game tonight. It really turned into a bad game."
On social media, the fans of the rival teams in the Premier League mocked Liverpool and Klopp with slights: "From a team that wanted to go to the quadruple to a club that is satisfied with the League Cup", "Liverpool walks alone and leaves Klopp to go home", "Maybe this is another night that an English team does not win in Europe, but this is the worst of all ".