Prior to last night’s much anticipated meeting between Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp and his former club Borussia Dortmund, there was a feeling in the air that it was perhaps too much to expect the Reds to come away from the Signal Iduna Park with anything resembling what would be considered a reasonable result on Merseyside, and especially so when looking at how the Bundesliga giants took apart high-flying Tottenham.
There were even questions being asked when the team sheet was issued prior to kick-off and we saw that 20-year-old Divock Origi was given the nod ahead of Reds No.1 Daniel Sturridge.
The young Belgium did all that was asked of him, using his physical presence and pace to stretch the German defence before executing a very calm and collected finish to give the Reds the lead.
For us here at Soccer Transfer we feel that the display from Origi last night should give Klopp the confidence to make him the clubs top striker and look to sell Christian Benteke and quite possibly Daniel Sturridge over the summer.
Now we have mentioned the good point let’s look at where Liverpool needs a change and say what every other Liverpool fan is saying and that is that left-back Alberto Moreno is just not good enough and was lucky to have stayed on the pitch following his reckless tackle late on against Christian Pulisic.
Hopefully his Dortmund counterpart Marcel Schmelzer will have reminded Klopp what a good left –back is supposed to be like, and if it were not for the fact he is 28-years-old we would be pushing for Liverpool to sign him up following last night’s excellent display.
If we had to single out a Liverpool player for going beyond the call of duty it would need to be James Milner, for the amount of work he put in to disrupt the Bundesliga sides time on the ball while also giving a special shout out to Mamadou Sakho and Dejan Lovren who are fast becoming Liverpool’s starting centre-backs.
At the end of the day however all credit must go to Klopp, who after experimenting with a 4-2-3-1 formation for most of the season opted to play a 4-3-3 for the big game, a tactic that countered Thomas Tuchel’s tactics to perfection.
Liverpool now has that all important away goal going into next Thursdays second leg at Anfield and know that they are just 90 minutes away from reaching the semi-final.
