Liverpool 0-1 Atletico player ratings: Sadio Mane a headless chicken

Liverpool lost 0-1 to Atletico Madrid on Tuesday night as Sadio Mane ran around like a headless chicken for the first half. Read our player ratings here!

After the surprise goal, the game settled down into pre-match stereotype as Atletico sat back and Liverpool tried to find a way through the red and white wall. But that’s not to say Atletico didn’t have any attacking threat as Alvaro Morata and Thomas Lemar caused the Red defence problems when Diego Simeone’s side tried to break out of their half.

In between the theatrics of the Spanish mob and the lack of a final ball from Liverpool, football briefly threatened to break out. However, the quality was low and Jurgen Klopp will be foaming at the mouth after watching putrid final ball after putrid final ball.

Atletico set their stall out early in the second half and refused to engage in any attacking play of any kind. Morata was left isolated up top as the eight defenders and midfielders hunkered down and dared Liverpool to play through them.

Try as they might, the Reds couldn’t find a way through the wall and failed to register a single shot on target. The main incident of note was a wildly offside pass from Sadio Mane passed to Mohamed Salah, who pointlessly fired home.

The loss has left Liverpool with a lot of work to do in the home leg, where the power of Anfield will be needed to propel this side to victory.  But without focusing too much on the future, let’s concentrate on the present and go through the player ratings for the Atletico loss.

Keeper

Couldn’t do anything about the goal, and made a good save against Morata after Fabinho let him get a shot away. His distribution was good and apart from that he didn’t have much to do.