Liverpool have been a dominant force so far in this season of the Champions League. Of course, the Champions League of this season is coming with a new format.
First segments of the fixtures are played in a league format with a full league table displaying the performance of each of the Champions League teams. For this particular segment of the competition, Liverpool managed to top the table. They have also secured an automatic qualification for the next segment of the Champions League games.
The next couple of games we will be playing including tonight's game is a game Liverpool can afford to lose or draw. Still, I would be glad to see us win this. Haha.
Well, for tonight's UCL fixture, Liverpool are up against LOSC Lille, a club that's playing at the top French League.
Considering the current position Liverpool are currently in, you would think that we will get into this game with a line up that's filled with our second XI. Slot of the other hand didn't want to mess around. He fielded a fairly solid team with VVD, Salah, Gravenberch, Szobo, and even Diaz in the starting XI.
He had his own way of balancing the team though. Bradley, Quansah, Jones, Nunez, and Tsimikas also got into the starting XI. I would have liked to see Elliot and Endo in the starting XI too because they haven't had enough game time this season despite having really good performance whenever they are called upon.
First Half.
The first half was a pretty calm one for Liverpool. We had our moments of creating chances during this half of the game. However, unlike in our weekend game where we had 37 goal attempts, this time around, the lads were comfortable to sit back and pass the ball around before making quick transition to attack.
We ended this half of the game with a well deserved goal which was scored by Salah. He could have scored another goal after this, but missed the opportunity. His reaction after that made it obvious that he knew he messed up that goalscoring opportunity.
No qualms though. We ended the first half with 1 - 0 win.
Second Half.
Liverpool started this second half with quick double substitution. Gravenberch and Jones were taken off and replaced with Elliot and Macca. Endo, Chiesa, and Trent also had their moment to get into the field and get some playing time.
By the 59th minute of the game, Mandi of Lille picked up his second yellow card of the game. That's a red card and this forced Lille to play with 10-men. That's never an easy thing to do.
You would think that Liverpool would capitalize on this and extend the scoreline to a ridiculous number. However, Lille scored an equalizer 3 minutes later.
Liverpool bounced back from that and scored another goal 5 minutes after Lille's equalizer to go ahead and reclaim their winning position. This was in the 67th minute of the game. The rest of the game ended with that same scoreline.
Liverpool won.
3 points in the bag.
Now, we will have our eyes on the next game.
Thanks For Not Missing Any Full-stop or Comma.
Thumbnail Image is taken from Unsplash
