PSG Penalties Punish Premier League Champions Elect Liverpool

Liverpool were better in losing to Paris Saint-Germain than they were when beating them. Football gonna football sometimes.

Paul Tomkins, Andrew Beasley, Daniel Rhodes and other TTT regulars will give their thoughts on the match for 24 hours after the game, so the article received via email is unlikely to be the final version. There's statistics from the match and videos too.

Post-Match Thoughts

Paul Tomkins

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Daniel Rhodes

We could bemoan the bad luck of missed chances, inside of the posts being struck, last ditch blocks and the performance of the officials, but... and was so glad to read it waking up this morning from Slot, that was a magnificent game of football between the two best teams currently playing the sport in Europe.

When did PSG become a football team? That’s an impressive turnaround from a corrupt group of owners because it made for a classic two leg knockout tie. Smash and grab from the Reds in the first leg, where we were lucky not have Konate sent off; and a similar narrative in the second, just the other way around, where we definitely should have had one penalty at the end of the first half, but otherwise put in a tremendous example of pressing, energy, and creativity. Compared to PSG’s rather fortunate equalising goal, against the run of play, before they came back into the match in extra-time after being schooled for most of the second 45 minutes where despite our best efforts we just couldn’t score.

The tactical battle was incredible, the pressure we put on them to build from deep, often providing clear openings from turnovers for us that didn’t result in two much was great to watch. The ability of the players to use little one touch dink passing, fantastic close control and body shapes to avoid the tackles and pressure; and finally, the little magician in the middle of the park Vitinha: 136 passes at 93% accuracy, he is joy to watch and why Wolves turned down the chance to sign him for £17m a while back is mind-blowing.

In terms of going out of the competition, I’ve been very critical and cynical of the new format, which seems contrived and, clearly, ridiculously unfair if the best team by some distance end up playing one of the other best teams, leaving no incentive to really win the matches in the ‘group’ stage. Struggled all season to get up for the Champions League, and didn’t feel much going out of it, especially because it was a lottery of penalty kicks.

Andrew Beasley

A wondrous season in which Liverpool have won week after week is suddenly almost over. The Champions League exit means that the Reds have just 10 games remaining.

There was a definite air of the Atletico Madrid game in 2020, albeit Liverpool were not quite as dominant as they were that night. I can’t have been the only one fearing the worst as chances came and went.

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