Liverpool’s Champions League campaign continued with a second win from two games, a 2-0 over Bologna on Anfield’s first big European night in 20 months.
Liverpool 2-0 Bologna
Champions League (2), Anfield
October 2, 2024
Goals: Mac Allister 11′, Salah 74′
Alisson – 7 (out of 10)
Beaten early on but by a player miles offside.
Made his customary couple of claims and catches to settle us, and tipped one shot wide in great fashion, but Ali also played a big role in some frankly stupid pressure on our goal in the first half with a series of mistakes in possession and poor choices of passes.
Partly that’s of course down to the options and movement ahead of him, but Arne Slot has already said: at times, go direct!
We almost cost ourselves at least one goal, though of course Alisson redeemed a moment of two with actual goalkeeping. Massive save at 1-0.
Trent Alexander-Arnold – 7
One of those matches where his passing range was on point from the first whistle, though maybe he could have sent Darwin Nunez in a split-second earlier before the flag went up.
However he caught the ‘fucking about’ bug and nearly gifted a goal during the aforementioned ridiculous first-half spell.
Much better second half and only really got beaten by Dan Ndoye once.
Ibrahima Konate – 7
Excellent, but also involved in those absurd moments of passing out and straight to Bologna’s attack. Booked for seemingly being pulled about by a defender on our corner? Which was quite bizarre.
Huge block just after 2-0 and much, much more secure in the second half in general.
Virgil van Dijk – 8
Shown a yellow card for being considerably bigger than Bologna’s forward line. Otherwise pretty much spot-on with his defensive reading and mopping up.
Didn’t have too many enormous moments but showed the consistency and calmness we clearly needed and won a boatload of duels.
Andy Robertson – 6
Much of both teams’ attacking play and buildup went down the opposite flank, so it was large spells of running without touching the ball for Robbo at times.
Generally strong in the challenge when he made them and solid with his passing, but never found a man with his crosses and picked up a booking too.
Ryan Gravenberch – 8
Had the crowd singing his name after a sweet early turn on the ball, but then nearly cost a goal when trying it again 10 minutes later.
Some brilliant turns and powerful runs from deep in truth, the kind few have the combination of power and technique to pull off, but also he surged beyond his zone a fair bit which left us open at the back.
Overall another very positive showing.
Alexis Mac Allister – 8
Showed some magic touches and opened the scoring early on with a great pass, surging run and neat tap-in from a few yards.
Seemed to benefit from freedom to run on when the Reds were in possession, but defensively maybe we needed a bit more at times.
Second half that appeared to be the message as he was the deepest of the three quite often, while his touch and tenacity rose a notch to go with his excellent vision.
Dominik Szoboszlai – 8 – Man of the Match
A ‘clearly up for it’ game from very early on, the Hungarian was quick to nip in and win the ball multiple times and played a lovely return pass in the build-up to Mac Allister’s goal.
Did the most of the three central players to earn back possession, which was just as well at times in that first half.
A better on-the-ball showing than he has had recently, though one or two passes into the box weren’t quite on point – arguably as a result of the runs ahead of him.
Definitely a big performer on the night when others were losing or lacking concentration. Great off-the-ball work.
Mohamed Salah – 8
Had one assist in 10 minutes or so but it’s unreasonable to think he might have had two or three in half an hour – as was the case against Wolves, a right-footed square ball to free a teammate was twice lacking the right angle and weight when it was otherwise a one-on-one situation.
Still, Salah is not one to hide after falling short: he arrowed one just past the post after the hour mark, failed to make another square for another chance…then absolutely blockbustered one curler into the top corner.
Relentless. Goal and an assist on a night when he didn’t play all that well…so…did he, actually?!
Luis Diaz – 7
Lots of endeavour and bustle, though much of it was outside the box or in extremely deep areas – he played an important role first half when we were endeavouring to give the ball away in our own box to be a decent outball, a fighter and a ball-carrier.
Would have scored if not for Mac Allister being a yard in front.
Almost excellent, but not quite with the end product for it: just before he went off he summed up his own showing by dribbling across the entire defence and penalty box…but never finding the right moment to shoot and eventually sending a pass wayward.
Darwin Nunez – 6
Restored to centre-forward after Jota’s minor injury and could have perhaps scored after 90 seconds, had he been on the front foot.
Involved in the buildup to the opener though and finished coolly soon after – but the ball through was just delayed and he was offside.
Beyond that, was too quiet, too often. His touch wasn’t assured enough, his runs weren’t aggressive enough.
Early in the second half he failed to read a pass into feet and that was it for Arne Slot – the boss threw his arms up, turned around and gave the call for Diogo Jota.
Substitutes
Diogo Jota (on for Nunez, 59′) – 6 – Lots of movement but nothing fell his way in the box.
Kostas Tsimikas (on for Robertson, 70′) – 7 – Won a couple of tackles, made a few runs. Oddly got booked for winning one of those tackles by one of the shittest refs you’ll see all year.
Cody Gakpo (on for Diaz, 70′) – 6 – Not one of his more electric efforts off the bench.
Conor Bradley (on for Alexander-Arnold, 85′) – N/A – Game time.
Curtis Jones (on for Szoboszlai, 85′) – N/A – Probably disappointed not to start this one.
Subs not used: Jaros, Kelleher, Gomez, Quansah, Endo, Morton, Nyoni
Arne Slot – 8
Just the one change this time around in a bit of a change of emphasis from Slot, who has favoured the ‘few’ changes over outright rotation of late – and he didn’t seem to like the one he made this time, getting annoyed more than once by Nunez before subbing him.
First Liverpool manager to win eight of his first nine, is an important and notable stat, though as usual context has to be applied in terms of who we’ve faced – the next nine will, in general terms across the board, be much tougher fixtures.
And yet, there’s no question he got it right on the day, albeit with his strongest available lineup to make sure the job got done.
Six points out of six leaves Liverpool already in a very strong position in this competition, which perhaps gives him room to move with rotations later on in the calendar.
Largely looked happy with the team in the second half, but we can be certain there were words about diligence and concentration at the break.
They seemed to work and another clean sheet is the outcome. Perhaps he should have those conversations ahead of kickoff on Saturday?
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