As Thomas Tuchel can testify, this was an awful day for Champions League-winning German managers. If Barcelona ranks as Liverpool’s finest and famous European game under Jurgen Klopp, this was surely the worst and the most worrying. Liverpool have touched greatness at times in continental competitions in his reign, but they were gruesome as they were garrotted by Luciano Spalletti’s inspired Napoli team. It is a hat-trick of defeats in Naples in the Klopp era, but this was the heaviest and the most harrowing. Unlike the previous two, this seemed to highlight deeper problems.
There was Liverpool’s now trademark slow start but without the salvation of improvement thereafter. There were a collection of errors, with a shambolic defence found glaringly wanting while the lack of a functioning midfield compounded their problems. There were individual errors and a lack of cohesion among the collective. The side Klopp famously christened ‘mentality monsters’ looked lacking in spirit. Only Luis Diaz, who mounted a one-man attempt at an unlikely rescue job, should escape censure.
