Liverpool haven’t had much luck this season, so only the hardest heart would begrudge them the gifts presented by RB Leipzig in Budapest.
They came with what will almost certainly be a free pass to the Champions League last eight. Whether the match is played at Anfield, or beyond, it is hard to see Leipzig winning by a three-goal margin.
As Manchester United know, they are not best on their travels and stripped of genuine home advantage by covid restrictions, this tie looks pretty much over.
Liverpool were excellent, and well deserved their win and its margin. Mo Salah and Sadio Mane were both left one on one by defensive lapses, with predictable results.
They are considerably better teams left in the competition than Leipzig but, given their recent run, Liverpool will be grateful for this gentle introduction to the knock-out stage.
It allowed them to play to their strengths, pressing Leipzig and exploiting their cavalier high line and loose passing. By the end, Liverpool seemed happy to let Dayot Upamecano have the ball, knowing it would be coming back to them. If this wasn’t an off night, Bayern Munich’s coaches have an awful lot of work to do.
Liverpool’s goals came in a five minute interval in the second-half, when Leipzig’s slackness gave them the game. It had been heading that way all evening, the Germans lacking the care required to progress at this stage in the tournament. Manchester United must have been looking at the standards here, and kicking themselves.
How did they beat this team by five at Old Trafford, and still go out to them in the group stage? They’ll be reflecting on that, no doubt, while preparing for Thursday’s Europa League tie.
The first goal came after 53 minutes, started, ironically, by a poor pass from Jordan Henderson. It went straight to Marcel Sabitzer who upped the ante by playing an even worse one.
This was not just poorly directed but suicidal, falling straight to Salah who was now running on goal with only goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi – a Liverpool understudy for six years – to beat.
Bar Robert Lewandowski, no player in Europe’s top five leagues has been as prolific as Salah this season, and there was only going to be one winner. He stuck the ball smartly past Gulacsi, and Leipzig’s heads went down
They were still reeling when Liverpool added their second. This came from a long clearance which wasn’t doing much until Leipzig defender Nordi Mukiele decided to take it on with all the calmness and aplomb of a rabbit straying onto an Autobahn. He didn’t trap it, didn’t clear it, didn’t deal with it at all really, and then fell over.
Mane sped away with Upamecano in desperate, fruitless pursuit. His conversion was as assured as Salah’s, taking him into Liverpool top five goalscorers in Europe. And there’s some names on that list.
If there was a downside it was the performance of another over-promoted Slovenian official – coincidentally the same nationality as UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin – who contrived to book seven players in a match that didn’t really have a bad tackle.
Fortunately, only two of them were Liverpool men – Henderson and his latest center-half partner Ozan Kabak – but in Europe, these misdemeanors have a way of mounting up.
