Liverpool secured a group win in the Champions League on Wednesday evening. At home, manager Jürgen Klopp’s team was 2-0 too strong for Atlético Madrid. Referee Danny Makkelie was in charge of the match and handed Felipe a direct red card before half-time. It was Liverpool’s fourth consecutive victory in Group B, in which they are no longer behind FC Porto (five points), Atlético (four points) and AC Milan (one point) with twelve points.
Luis Suárez, who wore the Liverpool shirt 133 times from 2011 to 2014, was loudly booed by the Anfield supporters at his entrance. The Uruguayan formed the attack duo at los Colchoneros with João Félix, while the suspended Antoine Griezmann was not present. Bee the Reds Virgil van Dijk was as usual in the central heart of the defense and the attack trio was formed by Mohamed Salah, Diogo Jota and Sadio Mané. Klopp put Roberto Firmino on the bench in favor of Jota, and that decision turned out to be good in the thirteenth minute of play.
Liverpool ahead! ? The football machine happily continues to score, because via a nice cross from Alexander-Arnold and the head of Jota it is already 1-0 against Atletico ??#ZiggoSport #UCL #LIVATL pic.twitter.com/2gxoFA6Uth
— Ziggo Sport Football (@ZS_Voetbal) Nov 3, 2021
Jordan Henderson returned the ball to Trent Alexander-Arnold on the right side of the field, who put in an excellent cross to Jota. The striker towered over the Madrid defense and outwitted goalkeeper Jan Oblak in the bottom left corner: 1-0. Eight minutes later, the scoreboard was already 2-0. Once again there was plenty of space on the right flank, where Alexander-Arnold delivered a new cross to measure. This time, Sadio Mané was the end station, and with a simple-looking foot movement, the left winger doubled the margin.
In the 36th minute the problems increased for Atlético, which ended up with one man less. In an attempt to pull off the counterattack, Felipe made a rash tackle from behind on Mané. Makkelie did not hesitate for a moment and immediately drew the red card. Liverpool could not exploit the numerical superiority before half-time. In the 48th minute Jota thought to make his second of the evening. On a pass from Fabinho, the Portuguese outwitted Oblak, but after viewing the video images it turned out that Jota was offside: goal disallowed.
Atlético Madrid did not have a good first act ?? Trailing 2-0 and then a red card to Felipe followed by two quick yellows for Luis Suárez and Koke ??#ZiggoSport #UCL #LIVATM pic.twitter.com/fTJNnpkD3z
— Ziggo Sport Football (@ZS_Voetbal) Nov 3, 2021
Shortly after Mohamed Salah (rescue Oblak), Joël Matip (header over) and again Jota (header wide) failed to take advantage of great opportunities, an Atlético goal was also disallowed. After a pass with the head of José María Giménez, Suárez found the 2-1 through Matip’s leg; However, Giménez was just over the edge of offside when heading through. Afterwards, Liverpool remained the dominant party, but the home team was careless with the opportunities created. Atlético had nothing to crumble in the milk and were lucky that it remained at 2-0.