Jurgen Klopp was left reeling as Liverpool fell victim to a late Lorenzo Insigne goal in Italy. Insigne had already come close on two occasions before his close-range winner in the dying minutes had the Stadio San Paolo rocking. Whilst Liverpool were poor, Carlo Ancelotti’s side were on the front foot from the outset and thoroughly deserved the victory.
Toothless Liverpool
Liverpool offered up an inexplicable performance against Napoli as the Reds failed to muster a single shot on target. Their front three of Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah scored a combined total of 91 goals last season but looked out of sorts.
Salah consistently made poor decisions when in possession whilst Firmino and Mane faced criticism from Klopp.
”Sometimes Bobby (Firmino) ran too long with the ball, or Sadio (Mane) ran too long,” he said.
”When that happens, you cannot produce. The midfielders or the full-backs tried to go forward, but we lost the ball and had to go back in the other direction.
”It was intense, but we caused the intensity of the game ourselves,” he continued before shifting the blame to himself.
”A big part of the performance is my fault.
”I need one night to watch the game again, but it looked not like it should have looked.”
Napoli Improved
Napoli offered up a much-improved performance following their goalless draw with Red Star Belgrade in their opening group game. Ancelotti’s side utilised the wide areas well with Callejon and Mario Rui their most creative options.
Callejon managed five crosses into the Liverpool box before assisting Insigne for the winner. Mario Rui proved to be equally dangerous on the opposite wing, troubling the Liverpool defence with six crosses of his own.
Napoli deserved to take all three points from this game and currently sit atop Group C on four points.
Brilliant Joe Gomez
Liverpool were second best throughout the contest with the Serie A side and could’ve found themselves on the end of a much more damaging scoreline. Both centre-backs played well as Liverpool endured waves of Napoli pressure with Joe Gomez the standout of the two.
Gomez is maturing into a strong and reliable centre-back partner for Virgil van Dijk and continues to impress. The 21-year-old made seven crucial clearances as Liverpool soaked up the pressure in tough conditions. He also won three of four duels and ended the game with 85% pass accuracy, completing 60 passes.
Liverpool at Their Worst
This was undoubtedly Liverpool’s worst performance of the season and it leaves the Reds with work to do in their group. Travelling to the Stadio San Paolo was never going to be easy but Liverpool were never really in the contest, something that shouldn’t happen too many more times.
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