Liverpool have failed to reach at least the Champions League quarter-finals just once during Jurgen Klopp’s reign as Reds manager. In fact, you can make such a record in Europe entirely considering their run to the Europa League final in 2016.
But when it comes to the continent’s elite tournament, Liverpool have predominantly been involved at the business end of the competition having won the Champions League in 2019, been runners-up in 2018 and 2022 and reached the quarter-finals in 2021.
The 2019/20 season is the exception as they were shocked by Atletico Madrid in the round-of-16 on the eve of the Coronavirus pandemic. At least when the Champions League got underway it was behind closed doors so fans didn’t feel like they were missing out.
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It will be a different story this year, of course. Having lost 5-2 at home to Real Madrid in their round-of-16 first leg on Tuesday night, the Reds are as good as out. Klopp would even admit as much when speaking to reporters after the final whistle, even if he kept the door open to future optimism.
“I think Carlo thinks the tie is over. And I think it as well, in the moment,” he said. “But in three weeks? That’s how it is in these moments.”
Barring a miracle comeback at the Bernabeu, Liverpool will be watching the rest of this year’s Champions League as spectators. Given they currently sit eighth in the Premier League table, seven points off the top four, they have it all to do to ensure that isn’t the limit of their involvement next season also.
At least when the Reds were last knocked out in the last 16, it was a shock. They were the reigning European champions, after all, and well on their way to ending their 30-year drought to be crowned champions of England. In fact, when Atletico Madrid progressed by winning 3-2 at Anfield AET, Liverpool had won 27 and lost just one of their 29 Premier League matches to date.
Heading into that tie, Saul Niguez, who scored the winner in the first leg in Madrid, was full of praise for the Reds’ midfield.
“They have those perros de presa [hunting dogs] in the middle who run, press,” he told the Guardian. “It’s not just running for the sake of running: they do things that aren’t normal and it looks disordered but it’s ordered, mechanised.
“One comes out here and you think: ‘That’s mad, why’s he there?’ But the other man knows and comes from here. Klopp said they play with their heart, but it’s planned too. One breaks out to press, wild, but they follow. It’s very hard to escape when they come at you like that.
“It’s incredible: they press like animals because they know that even if they get turned there will be seven of them running like mad to get back. Liverpool are very complete, a great team in every area [but] they find it hardest when you’re deep because they’re very, very, very good in transition.
“They’ve won lots of games they could have drawn or lost, which tells you something about what they have inside. It’s not luck. It’s work, sacrifice, not giving up a single ball for lost.”
But at that time, their squad, and midfield in particular, was at its peak. Jordan Henderson, Fabinho, and Gini Wijnaldum would start in Madrid, with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain coming in for the Brazilian back at Anfield.
It was shock when the Reds lost to Atletico. It wasn't when they were schooled by Real. Now, three years on, their squad is ageing and stuck in transition. And while their midfield wasn’t the sole reason for their embarrassing 5-2 thrashing at the hands of Real Madrid, many fingers have been pointed in its direction for Liverpool's failings this season.
The Reds boast 11 senior options after Stefan Bajcetic’s emergence. Yet what they boast in quantity, they lack in quality with several of those options injury-prone and/or past their best.
Naby Keita, James Milner, Oxlade-Chamberlain, and Juventus loanee Arthur Melo aren’t contracted to the club beyond the summer, while Henderson, Thiago Alcantara and Fabinho are all on the decline. As a result, beyond them Klopp is left with 18-year-old Bajcetic, 19-year-old Harvey Elliott, 20-year-old Fabio Carvalho, and 22-year-old Curtis Jones. Yet question marks remain regarding the long-term positions and roles of the latter trio at Anfield.
Klopp would start Henderson, Fabinho, and Bajcetic against Real Madrid and in truth they were second best up against Luka Modric, Eduardo Camavinga, and Federico Valverde.
Henderson would win just one tackle at Anfield and Fabinho two. In contrast, Camavinga and Valverde won four each - the game’s highest total, level with Bajcetic and Cody Gakpo. The Madrid pair would also boast twice as many interceptions as any Liverpool player.
Meanwhile, Modric would pounce on Fabinho and then sprint away from Bajcetic to expertly help create Madrid’s fifth goal to stick the final nail in the Reds coffin. So effective on the counter-attack, it was a strike taken straight out of Liverpool’s playbook that became their undoing.
“It’s the way we used to play, let me say it like this, in the past,” Klopp would say of his own side’s first half performance. It certainly wasn’t after the break.
While the Reds’ first half showing might have been much more trademark, in the second half they fell apart and were left chasing shadows. As they struggled, it was Madrid’s midfielders that were pressing to force mistakes and popping up in the dangerous spaces in between.
As Niguez described, Liverpool at their best were animals as Klopp unleashed his hunting dogs on the opposition week after week. But such an identity is now beyond the Reds, showing how far they have fallen. It is what they need to rediscover when their promised midfield revamp belatedly gets underway in the summer.
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