Photo: Stephen Gormley (Red Eye Photo Agency)
Liverpool’s hopes of reaching the UEFA Europa League Final in Dublin in May evaporated as they failed to overcome their mountainous 3-0 first leg defeat.
Liverpool needed a minor miracle to get through against Atalanta after the devastating shock 3-0 defeat at home last week. However they got off to the perfect start with an early goal after just seven minutes to give them a fighting chance. Mo Salah slotted home a penalty following a hand ball in the box to give The Reds early belief.
Liverpool were living dangerously as they tried to reduce the deficit further. Allison had to make a point blank save and an Atalanta goal was chopped off following a close offside call.
Salah then had a glorious chance to double the score on the night when he was put through on goal in the 38th minute. However the keeper came rushing out and the Egyptian striker lobbed it over him and watched as the ball went two feet wide of the goal.
Atalanta seemed to gain confidence from the miss. They went into the half time break 1-0 down but most importantly still 3-1 up on aggregate.
Atalanta managed to get a stronger grip on the midfield in the second half and their man-marking system and physical presence troubled Liverpool. Nunez, Jota and Danns came on with 20 minutes to go for Liverpool but it had little impact and Atalanta continued to control the game.
Atalanta move on to the semi finals of the Europa League where they will take on Marseille, who won 4-2 against Benfica on aggregate.
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Photo: Stephen Gormley (Red Eye Photo Agency)
Atalanta surprised almost everyone with an emphatic 3-0 away win at Anfield in the first leg of their UEFA Europa League quarter final tie.
The nature of the victory for the Italians was even more surprising given Liverpool’s impressive 14-month unbeaten home record in all competitions before this match.
There were signs early on of a potential shock when, with just two minutes on the clock, Liverpool defender Van Dijk’s clearance richoted off an Atalanta player straight to Pasalic, who was only six yards out with only the keeper to beat. However he fired his shot straight at the face of Kelleher, who had dived towards the point-black shot, and the ball went wide for a corner.
Liverpool came agonisingly close to going ahead in the 30th minute when Harvey Elliott came in off the right and hit a curling shot from outside the box, which struck both the crossbar and post and somehow stayed out.
Atalanta seemed to gain a lot of confidence from that escape and Gianluca Scamacca gave Atalanta a shock lead in the 38th minute. A ball came across the box from the right and the former West Ham United striker hit a low and seemingly tame effort that somehow went underneath the diving Kelleher into the net.
At the start of the second half Mo Salah had a strike at goal saved by the inspired Musso in the Atalanta net. However Scamacca doubled the visitors’ lead in the 65th minute with a fine side-footed half-volley from 14 yards out after he was left completely unmarked in the box.
Liverpool kept battling to get back into the game. Robertson set up a great chance by driving down the left with pace and firing in a low ball across the box for Salah to finish at the back post to make it 2-1 for a moment but the goal was ruled out for a very tight offside.
In the 83rd minute it was 3-0. Kelleher saved from close range but the rebound deflected straight to Pasalic who lashed it into the back of the Liverpool net to add more misery for The Reds.
It will take a Houdini effort in Bergamo in the second leg for Liverpool to turn this tie around. However they could perhaps take some comfort when looking back at their last meetings with Atalanta in Europe in 2020 in the Champions League and remembering that they lost 2-0 at Anfield but won very comfortably in Italy 5-0.
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Photo: Stephen Gormley (Red Eye Photo Agency)
Liverpool go one better with a 6-1 victory in their second leg Europa League match against Sparta Prague, following their 5-1 away victory the previous week
It was always going to be strange when you turn up to a football stadium with the home team already 5-1 up from the first leg. Even stranger that Liverpool started and ended this match with a very strong line up on the pitch when they were already so far in front in the tie.
With both Salah and Nunez starting it was not going to take long for the scoring to restart again. A great one-two between Salah and Nunez before the latter lashed the ball into the bottom corner of the net with just seven minutes on the clock.
In the blink of an eye it was 2-0. Salah put pressure on the Sparta defence and the defender panicked and deflected the ball off Salah which fell to Bobby Clarke who scored his first goal for Liverpool.
With only 10 minutes on the clock Mo Salah made it 3-0 and also broke another club record – seventh season in a row with over 20 goals in all competitions. It was two assists and a goal in the first 10 minutes of action for the King of Anfield.
The Liverpool faithful did not have to wait long for goal number four. Gakpo lashed the ball into the net with still only 14 minutes played!
Nunez, Salah and Clark continued the onslaught on the Prague defence in the first half but couldn’t add any further goals. To be fair the Prague players lept on trying despite conceding four and they got a consolation goal back just before halftime. Birmanceviv broke free and slotted it past Kelleher to give them a deserved goal much to the delight of the away fans in the stadium.
The second half started like the first half ended. Szoboszlai shot deflecting into the Prague net to make it 5-1 on the night. Things didn’t get any easier for Prague with Robertson and Virgil coming on and Salah staying on for the whole match.
The visitors however continued to battle hard in the second half and only conceded one further goal. An Eliott shot from 20 yards out getting a neat little flick from Gakpo making it two for him on the night and 6-1 altogether.
With the final aggregate score finishing 11-2 to Liverpool they will be full of confidence as they advance to the quarter finals against Atalanta.
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Photo: Stephen Gormley (Red Eye Photo Agency)
Liverpool emphatically destroy Sparta Prague 5-1 away from home in Europa League
Sparta Prague’s home record this season before meeting Liverpool in the last 16 of the Europa League has been very impressive. They have not lost a league game at home all season and currently sit top of the table in their domestic league. They were also unbeaten in the Europa League at home with five home wins and a 0-0 draw against Glasgow Rangers.
The 18,000 capacity Epet Arena was full and rocking on a chilly night in Prague. Sparta started off like they meant business. However a short pass at the back and Alexis MacAllister was on to it like a light before being taken down in the box after just seven minutes on the clock. The Argentinean got up to take the penalty and sent the keeper the wrong way to make it 1-0 to Liverpool.
As much as Prague huffed and puffed throughout the first half they never really recovered from that early set back. Kelleher did make a great reflex save and Gomez also cleared off the line. But once Nunez hit it from 20 yards out in the 25th minute to make it 2-0 the tie was over. In the 3rd minute of injury time just before the half time whistle, he hit another shot from outside the box to make it 3-0.
Just at the start of the second half Prague managed to get a goal back through a Conor Bradley own goal. But it made no real difference. Diaz went up the other end and made it 4-1 with a shot that got a bit of a deflection in the 53rd minute.
Szoboszlai put the icing on the cake in the 94th to make it 5-1 to Liverpool to really make sure they are in the draw for the last eight of the Europa League, despite the second leg still to come.
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Photo: Stephen Gormley (Red Eye Photo Agency)
Liverpool got off to the perfect start by taking the lead over French side Toulouse after just nine minutes. Diogo Jota skipped through the visitors’ defence on his own and coolly passed it past the helpless keeper to make it 1-0.
Toulouse managed to get back on level terms a few minutes later against the run of play. A long clearance fell to Thijs Dallinga on the right hand side with Matip and Trent failing trying to play offside. Dallinga ran straight through and kept his nerve and lashed it low and hard past Kelleher to make it 1-1.
It was not until the 30th minute that Liverpool got back in front with a great ball in from the right hand side right from Alexander-Arnold on to Wataru Endo’s head and straight into the Toulouse net to make it 2-1.
Liverpool never looked back from that moment. Darwin Nunez made it 3-1 four minutes later after an attempt on goal from Curtis ricocheted to Nunez who smashed it into the top corner of the net.
In the second half the French side had a glorious chance to get back into the game when Kelleher made an awful mistake to gift the ball to Toulouse. However with the keeper stranded, Gabriel Suazo somehow managed to hit his shot into the corner of the goal where Alexander-Arnold was standing and he managed to clear the ball to safety.
Liverpool put the contest well and truly beyond Toulouse with their fourth goal in the 65th minute. Nunez did all the hard work to break through the Toulouse defence and rounded the keeper before somehow hitting the post with an open goal to aim for. Fortunately for Nunez the ball rebounded back out to Ryan Gravenberch who skipped past the keeper and slotted his ball into the corner of the net to make it 4-1. Nunez didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Mo Salah came on with 10 minutes to go and smashed one in off the crossbar in the 93rd minute with his right foot to make it 5-1 on the night.
It was Liverpool’s seventh home win in a row and you can see why they are the amongst the favourites to win the Europa league in Dublin come May.
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Photo: Stephen Gormley (Red Eye Photo Agency)
Liverpool secured a 2-0 victory at home to Belgian side Union Saint-Gilloise in their second UEFA Europa League match.
Union approached the game full of confidence, sitting top of the Belgian Pro League after 10 matches. They fought hard and competed well for the majority of the match until the final 10 minutes, even though Liverpool had an impressive dominance of posession during the game (74%).
Liverpool played a strong team with Salah, Nunez and Jota up front. It did not take long for Salah to break free down the right before giving a perfect ball in for Nunez, who somehow put his effort wide from close range.
Liverpool thought they had made the breakthrough when Dutch midfielder Ryan Gravenberch broke through the Union defence and unleashed a thunderbolt from 20 yards out that the goalkeeper could only put into the path of Nunez who lashed it into the net. However the linesman put his flag up for offside to keep it at 0-0.
In the 44th minute a relatively tame shot from Trent Alexander from around 20 yards out bounced off the USG keeper and Gravenberch drilled it into the net to make it 1-0.
Diaz came on for Nunez at half time and his pace on the left wing tormented the visitors’ defence. Union managed however to keep the score to 1-0 until late on. In the 92nd minute Liverpool broke quickly from a Union corner with Jota winning the cleared ball in the middle of the field. Diaz ran through the middle and slided the ball back to Jota who coldly slotted the ball into the back of the net to make it 2-0 to Liverpool.
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]]>After moving back ‘home’ to Turin in the summer, many saw this as a coup for the Italian giants but instead Pogba’s return has been nothing short of disastrous.
Whether due to injuries or disciplinary issues, it is reported that the board of the Old Lady are already considering terminating the Frenchman’s contract to get his hefty wage bill off the books.
Pogba made over 120 appearances in his first spell at Juventus, scoring upwards of 25 goals in what by many was seen as the best stint of his career.
However, the second time around Allegri has not taken so kindly to Pogba. After returning for his first appearance of the season in the 4-2 triumph over Turin rivals Torino after a long injury layoff, it is reported that Allegri kept him out of the squad vs Freiburg in the Europa League for attitude problems.
This was after the France international supposedly reported to midweek training late which frustrated not only his manager but also his fellow teammates.
In Pogba’s absence, the Old Lady have risen to a respectable seventh place. Had they not been docked 15 points earlier in the season, they would sit in a much more respectable third place. They have therefore not missed the box-to-box presence of Pogba.
Instead, Allegri has decided to blood a number of youngsters into the team including Fabio Miretti, Nicolo Fagioli and Enzo Barrenechea in the centre of the park alongside more experienced heads in Adrian Rabiot and Manuel Locatelli.
All five of these players are having successful seasons in their own manner, especially Rabiot who has already hit ten goals for the season in a box-to-box midfield role.
When Pogba signed for the Old Lady it was believed he would once again establish himself as a key part of the squad but he has actually become a target for fans due to his off-field antics and the rise of three homegrown talents in midfield.
It is hard to deny that Juventus could still need Pogba for the remainder of the season though as they aim to get into the Champions League spots and win a competitive Europa League.
With Allegri now favouring a midfield three this could allow the more attack-minded Pogba to thrive. The best football the 30-year-old has ever played came with the national team where N’Golo Kante could cover for his defensive frailties.
With two midfield partners, Pobga could get into the attacking third more and his sometimes poor positioning would not be exposed as much with Locatelli there for cover.
The Frenchman is an expert at progressing the ball up the field whether with passes or dribbling. This could give Juventus another aspect in their game as at the moment the majority of the progression comes from wing-backs Filip Kostic and Juan Cuadrado.
In the next couple of weeks, Juventus will have to play without Pogba again after
These frequent injury woes have led to Pogba’s market value decreasing from £55 million to £35 million from 2022 to 2023 which is a staggering loss.
With Pogba now in his thirties, it should be his priority to get on the pitch and prove his critics are wrong about him not living up to his undoubted potential.
If he does continue his injury woes and poor disciplinary record then Allegri may decide his once-trusted midfielder is no longer needed at the Allianz Stadium.
Italian football is currently going through a tough financial period, therefore Pogba’s reported weekly wage of £150,000 may just be too much for the Old Lady to handle. A move to the MLS is already being mooted around.
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]]>The man who has been dubbed the special one is at it again, delivering another trophy, this time Roma’s first major European trophy in their history.
Jose Mourinho admittedly has enjoyed greater moments in his glittering managerial career, but his latest success, even reduced him to shedding a tear.
Europe’s third tier club competition has been ridiculed in some quarters, but that won’t worry the man who is a born winner and is only concerned about delivering trophies.
Mourinho has now become the first manager in history to win all three major European competitions after making it five wins out of five in European finals. He has also become the first manager to win a European trophy with four different clubs, after previous successes at Porto, Inter Milan and Manchester United.
Remarkably, this is the 26th trophy of Mourinho’s managerial career, which started with Porto’s Uefa Cup win back in 2003.
When he was announced as Roma boss last May, he was given the difficult task of building the club back to where it should be in Serie A, challenging for honours after a very disappointing seventh placed finish in 2020-21.
The special one has instilled togetherness in this current Roma side, by bringing their first trophy in 14 years.
There will be some who will point out that this was Mourinho’s first trophy win since capturing the Europa League with Manchester United in 2017.
Former player at United Chris Smalling joined Roma three years ago and is just one player who has really developed under Mourinho this season along with Tammy Abraham who has been a massive success under the special one at Roma after joining from Chelsea last August. In his first season in Italy, he has bagged 27 goals, a European trophy and a place in Gareth Southgate’s England squad.
The 59-year-old has slowly begun to rebuild his reputation following torrid spells in charge of Tottenham and Manchester United in the Premier League which both culminated in acrimonious departures after failing to deliver major trophies to both sides.
With United he won both the EFL Cup and the FA Community Shield but failed to deliver a trophy with Tottenham in his two-year spell with the club.
The doubters will always say that he has lost his winning magic recently, but look back at his record with Chelsea, having won the Premier League title three times in 2004-5, 2005-6 and 2014-15. It was a while ago, but with any manager who can install the belief and get the best out of his group of players, he will always deliver.
Could this success with Roma possibly see the return of Mourinho back to the Premier League at some point in the future? After all, there wouldn’t be too many clubs who if offered would be turning down his services.
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Photo: Stephen Gormley (Red Eye Photo Agency)
Eintracht Frankfurt won their first European trophy in 42 years following their 5-4 victory on penalties over Glasgow Rangers in the Europa League Final in Seville after the match finished 1-1 after extra time.
No stadium in Europe would have been able to hold all the Rangers fans that travelled to Seville for the Europa League final. Indeed Seville opened up a second stadium in their city to show televised coverage on large screens to the vast majority of the 100,000 travelled who weren’t lucky to get hold of one of the official 9,500 tickets for the final. The last time Rangers were in a European Final was in Manchester in 2008 where they lost to Zenit St Petersburg in the UEFA Cup Final. Before that you had to go back in time 50 years to the European Cup Winners Cup Final in 1972 when they won their only European trophy to date. Everywhere you looked in Seville you saw a sea of blue and orange with fans travelling from as far away as Australia and New Zealand just to see the match.
Eintracht Frankfurt fans also travelled in significant numbers to Seville as their fans hoped to emulate their team of 1980 who won the UEFA Cup on away goals in the two-legged final against fellow German side Borussia Mönchengladbach.
Rangers did not seem daunted about playing Frankfurt who finished 11th Bundesliga, especially as they had already knocked out two German sides en route to the final who had finished considerably higher in the league, namely Borussia Dortmund in second place and RB Leipzig in fourth.
Seville lived up to its nickname as the “Frying Pan of Spain” with temperatures reaching a scorching 40 degrees during the day of the match. Even by the time the final kicked off at 21:00 local time the temperature was still in the high 20s. The final was a tense affair played in very sticky conditions and of course the atmosphere from both sets of fans in the stadium was immense.
Frankfurt looked the better team in the first half but there were not many clear cut chances. The match remained at stalemate until a slick move was finished off by Joe Aribo in the 57th minute which stunned Frankfurt and would have taken the roof off the stadium if it had one! The Rangers fans went mad and knew the dream of a first major title in 50 years was on.
Photo: Stephen Gormley (Red Eye Photo Agency)
The dream lived on for about 12 minutes until Colombian striker Rafael Borré hammered home in the 69th minute to make it 1-1 on the night. The heat was draining on both sets of players as well as on the fans in the stadium -UEFA had to apologize after the match for there not being enough water available in the stadium for fans who were watching the game in extremely hot conditions.
The match went over into 30 minutes of extra time and the trophy looked set to be heading to Glasgow when just two minutes from time the Scottish side had a glorious chance to seal the victory. However Frankfurt keeper Kevin Trapp dived across his goal and managed to save a point black shot with his legs from Kevin Trapp.
Trapp became the hero again in the penalty shoot-out by saving again with his legs when Aaron Ramsey hit his shot straight down the middle.
Photo: Stephen Gormley (Red Eye Photo Agency)
An ecstatic Trapp said after the match:
“It was karma for past heartbreak and tonight was just written for us to lift the trophy”
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West Ham 1 : 2 Eintracht Frankfurt
It ain’t over til it’s over as Yogi Berra once famously said. West Ham’s hopes of a Champions League place by dint of a top four finish may have come to an end with a home defeat by local rivals Arsenal.
However, their Europa League hopes are very much alive despite a 1-2 loss at home to Eintracht Frankfurt. The Hesse side were very good but not unbeatable. Filip Kostic was their star man and his skilful control of Eintracht’s progress down the left wing gave Ben Johnson as difficult a test as he is likely to see all season.
Japanese international Daichi Kamada was an able assistant but it was one of the less heralded individuals, Ansgar Knauff who stamped or rather headed his imprint on the game with Frankfurt’s opener after just 52 seconds. Kamada was however to remerge as both the scorer of Eintracht’s winning goal as well as the player most like to score a third or a fourth.
For a while the London side were wobbly but their guests were not quite clinical enough to take advantage and their more measured approach did work for them over the length of the 90 minutes. West Ham began to overcome any inferiority complex and matched their opposition.
When the equaliser came, it was well earned. Kurt Zouma won a magnificent aerial header and found Michail Antonio whose prompt reaction meant he had little to do but finish.
Like the hosts, the visitors did not panic at conceding a goal and the game then found an equilibrium. The quality passing was coming from Eintracht but West Ham’s attacks were more incisive however they found the less heralded, probably because he plays his international football for Austria rather than Germany, Martin Hinteregger in majestic form.
The German club has only won once in five attempts at Waldstadion in this tournament but the other four have been draws. West Ham have the talent to go one better but their second home defeat in four days suggests they may have run out of steam
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