Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after PSG 2 Liverpool 0 in the 2025-2026 Champions League quarter-final in Paris…
TOOK the night to take it on board and contemplate. And where I am is:
– I don’t like it.
I can’t be bothered with a back three as a rule, can’t be bothered with a shape for a one off game. In fact when we are flying few things please me more than the opposition changing shape to something they rarely/never do.
I know teams win games and even competitions playing back threes. I also know footballers move around the pitch and approaches are more important than shapes but ultimately while I respect the work of centre-backs, I think you can have too many.
Last night was too many. And looked a bit ramshackle. Each does good things when the pressure was on. The tackle which is now defined by the overturned decision from Ibou Konate is effectively tie-saving. It’s simultaneously a remarkable piece of defending and begs a massive question – there are three of you: Why does Zaire-Emery have the room to pitch a four-man tent on the penalty spot?
But Konate got back in brilliantly and Liverpool survived.
And where I am is:
– Liverpool survived.
I can’t bear choosing to be second-best in a game. This isn’t in the “drag them down to our level” way. I like that. It involves dragging, clawing and then bettering. Just before it goes 2-0 the dragging feels possible. Paris St. Germain have become a little ragged but Liverpool lacked that final pull and instead PSG kept it and regained their poise before threading the ball.
But let’s be clear – there wasn’t a ton of dragging in the strategy. What there was in the strategy was getting out in as close to one piece as possible with a game worth playing, worth committing to next week.
It meant being passive, dropping in and seeing the ball as a pressure release valve rather than a purpose in its own right. Within that a few needed to do more. Hugo Ekitike can’t bear choosing to be second-best either but when that decision is made we need more Karl-Heinz Riedle than Michael Owen. We need Emile Heskey.
Heskey is a fascinating throw back. The game is reminiscent of European away games from that era – suffering as a choice, survival as an aim. An issue is that we are not used to it. By we I mean those of us in the stands and watching on the screens, and I mean those on the pitch. Florian Wirtz – who played well – didn’t come to Liverpool to let other people have the ball. And if your back four is Babbel, Henchoz, Hyypia, Carragher you maybe don’t need to play three centre-backs because look at it – you are already playing four.
What you need is for everyone to understand the brief and how they will work within it and Hugo Ekitike did not. But the Liverpool manager had to dance with the one that brung him and Liverpool as a collective just about managed to survive.
And where I am is:
– They showed resilience.
The opening goal is horrible. Yes the nature of those blocks I am sure does your head in but the ball loops in a way where it is unreachably high a yard from the goal line but nestles in the bottom of the net.
I mean, just fuck off. It’s hard enough this at the home of the European Champions, who shoot brilliantly from 18 yards, without a significant degree of fortune offering them an opening goal. They’d have got one anyway, by virtue of being good, in all likelihood.
It was a sickener.
And Liverpool, astonishingly, weren’t sickened.
Liverpool played, against Manchester City, far better for 25 minutes or so than they ever looked like managing here. They have a progressive identity and looked the likelier scorers. And then they conceded. And then the side fell to pieces.
When the sickener hit the back of the net all that I could think was it was the sort of goal which sees one become two very quickly this season. Virgil van Dijk makes a mistake, the ball hits Alex Scott in the face and before you know where you are Joe Gomez is injured and Alex Jimenez has made it two and Liverpool are snookered.
Or Virgil van Dijk’s goal against Manchester City away is chalked off and Liverpool are penned in before Nico Gonzalez’s deflected effort hits the net and it is two just before half-time.
I say this not to say Liverpool have had hard lines – they have, but every side does, it’s a stupid game – just more that when they have this season more often than not they have collapsed in a heap, complaining it is a stupid game rather than revelling in the game.
Last night it would be wrong to say they revelled in it but they took a couple of heavy blows and didn’t sit down and say enough was enough. They didn’t throw the towel in.
This can seem like thin gruel. Again, I don’t like any of it, but what it showed was a seriousness of purpose.
And where I am, and where they are, is:
– This matters at Anfield.
This was their seriousness of purpose – have a game of football at Anfield that matters. The best way to define this is that we have a game at Anfield where if Liverpool score the first goal, at any stage of the game, then all hell can break loose. Five minutes or eighty-five minutes, all hell can break loose.
Will they get it and will all hell break loose? Well this is, in part, where we come in. This is where we have a part to play. Where we need to make it clear to them that we are with them more than anything. That we know it will be hard but that every 50/50, 40/60, 30/70 won is a step forward. A meaningful one hopefully.
We won’t have it all our own way, far from it, and we know that but we don’t need a back three, a shape for one game and there is no getting out in one piece which doesn’t involve winning, being on the front foot and having an idea and a plan around that.
That doesn’t mean be irresponsible – again whenever the first goal comes it will be welcome. But it does mean going beyond simply surviving and knowing what it is that will bring a goal about from the outset and after substitutions.
Last year Aston Villa had a two goal deficit from their first-leg against PSG, then went two behind at Villa Park and ended the game needing just one to see them take the contest to extra-time. They got two goals quickly and PSG hung on for dear life.
There was enough in last night, when Liverpool were in survival mode, when they were on their patch and had it far too easy. There was enough there that you can see that this is not a side without weakness. Indeed, one of their greatest strengths is that they dangle that weakness, dangle a carrot. And sometimes, when a carrot is dangled, no matter how good the dangler in question can be, it can be snaffled up.
Liverpool will need to be aggressive, focused and ruthless, allow they may need 120 minutes, will need to be lucky (to be clear, that is what the Doue goal is – everyone needs a bit of luck) and will need to be roared on by 60,000 maniacs who have decided they are mad as hell and they aren’t going to take this any more. If that isn’t you, if you don’t feel like a maniac who wants to argue with God when you wake up next Tuesday morning, then don’t come. It might not work, but it is as good a plan as any.
And where I am is:
Fuck tifos.
Subscribe for immediate post-match reaction from around the ground…
