There’s no escaping the magnitude of Liverpool’s Champions League clash with Galatasaray at Anfield tonight.
Overturn the 1-0 deficit from last week’s first leg in Istanbul and their reward will be an attractive quarter-final tie with holders Paris Saint-Germain next month.
Liverpool haven’t reached that stage of the competition since 2022 and progress for the six-times winners would lift the mood following Sunday’s dispiriting home draw with struggling Tottenham Hotspur. Dreams of a trip to Budapest in late May would remain intact.
However, fall short against the Turkish champions, and the backlash will be intense. You can’t win six of your eight league phase matches and then get dumped out by limited opponents who finished 20th.
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The blow of losing to PSG on penalties in the last 16 a year ago was softened by the fact that Liverpool were on the brink of being crowned Premier League champions. This time around there’s no such comfort to cling to. Going out of Europe would leave them locked in a grim fight for a top-five finish domestically with a tricky FA Cup quarter-final at Manchester City on the horizon.
Much of the build up has centred on head coach Arne Slot following the boos which echoed around Anfield after the final whistle on Sunday. The Dutchman finds himself in the eye of a storm after overseeing a succession of damaging setbacks. He needs a performance as well as a result to restore some hope among a restless fanbase and prove he can lead Liverpool out of this slump.
“When I came here, people said to me this club is different than other clubs, they will support the manager for such a long time,” Slot told reporters at Anfield on Tuesday.
“If they are not happy with me then apparently I’ve done so many things wrong and that’s never a nice feeling to have. But I also know how the football industry works. Winning can change a lot, and that’s what we are trying to achieve.”
Patience has been severely tested by the structural issues that Slot has so far been unable to fix. Liverpool don’t press well enough as a unit and are far too easy to play through. Too often they struggle to create from open play because their brand of football is too slow and predictable.
There’s a lack of control with game management conspicuous by its absence. It’s an alarming statistic that they have conceded 10 goals in the 90th minute or later in all competitions this season — more than any side in Europe’s big five leagues.
Yet it’s too easy to just point the finger at Slot. Others have also made a lot of mistakes. How many senior players in that dressing room can look in the mirror currently and say they are performing anywhere near the level they’re capable of?
One of the few, Dominik Szoboszlai, caused a stir when he bemoaned the sight of supporters leaving Anfield early on Sunday. “I don’t think it helps us that after 80 minutes people start to go home,” the Hungarian midfielder told reporters.
“Everyone is noticing that and when we concede a goal still people are leaving the stadium – you don’t leave when we score. I understand the frustration but we need them, we need everybody. Stick with us.”
Arne Slot is under mounting pressure at Liverpool (Peter Powell/AFP via Getty Images)
In fairness to Szoboszlai, he wasn’t passing the buck. He also talked about how supporters had every right to be angry given the abject manner in which Liverpool had “lost control” in the second half. He’s a leader who was simply calling for unity.
The Anfield crowd will play their part under the lights. With Galatasaray fans banned by UEFA, the 3,000-strong away allocation has been sold to home supporters. Frustration over how this season has unravelled to this point will be parked.
But it’s down to the players to ensure that they feed off that energy in the stands and stamp their authority on the contest from the off. Another slow start would only play into the visitors’ hands by generating anxiety in the stands.
Long-serving left-back Andy Robertson, who faced the media at Anfield on Tuesday, admitted as much. “In certain games we’ve not been on it from minute one,” he said. “You can’t waste minutes in the second leg. We wasted some in the first leg.
“Obviously the pressure is a bit bigger on all of us at the minute because the results aren’t there. We have to give the fans something to shout about. They’ll be right behind us, but we have to give them something to get behind.”
Who is going to step up and deliver? Ibrahima Konate has to improve markedly from the first leg otherwise Galatasaray’s 19-goal top scorer Victor Osimhen has the ability to put the tie beyond Liverpool. Captain Virgil van Dijk must ensure there’s no repeat of the lack of organisation and concentration from set pieces which enabled Mario Lemina to score the winner in Istanbul.
It’s a night for those with big price tags to show why Liverpool invested so heavily in their services. Florian Wirtz should still be smarting from the glorious early chance he missed last week. The same goes for Hugo Ekitike, whose recent run of just one goal in his last eight appearances is concerning.
Hugo Ekitike has lost his spark in recent weeks (Peter Powell/AFP via Getty Images)
Ekitike has looked jaded but there were no excuses for some of his decision making when he came on against Tottenham. Mohamed Salah, who is on the brink of becoming the first African ever to score 50 Champions League goals, was equally wasteful on the counter-attack.
Liverpool have to be more incisive, more ruthless in the final third. They need to stop losing so many duels in midfield and being bullied defensively from long balls. For Van Dijk, Ryan Gravenberch and Curtis Jones, it’s also a case of treading carefully given that all three are a yellow card away from being banned for the first leg of the quarter-final if Slot’s side advance.
Szoboszlai spoke at the weekend about Liverpool needing to “wake up” because they are running of chances to put right what’s gone wrong. If anything significant is going to be salvaged from this turbulent campaign then the upturn has to happen now.
On the eight previous occasions Liverpool lost by a one-goal margin away in the first leg of a knockout tie in Europe’s elite club competition, they came back to win the tie five times. The most recent was against Chelsea in the semi-final in May 2007 when they went through on penalties.
It’s difficult to know what to expect given the inconsistency they have showcased. This is a team who have beaten Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Inter, but failed to overcome Tottenham, Burnley, Leeds or Sunderland at home in recent months.
According to reports in Turkey, Osimhen has negotiated a €5million bonus for the Galatasaray squad to share if they march on to the quarter-finals.
For Liverpool, the motivation is even greater. A season is on the line.