Liverpool made 11 changes but still comfortably beat LASK in their Europa League game
Liverpool’s lineup for previous Europa League games has been popular at times for the wrong reasons.
For example, how often have we all been told over the past 13 years, “You wouldn’t believe the Liverpool starting lineup that played at Napoli in 2010”?
The bench named in last season’s Europa League semi-final against Atletico Madrid is also a “super famous” favourite.
Inevitably, the Reds have rarely been at their best in UEFA’s second-tier competition, playing in the shadow of the Champions League on Thursday night.
Whether it was in the early days of Roy Hodgson, Kenny Dalglish, Brendan Rodgers or even Jurgen Klopp, the squads were changed accordingly and filled with fringe players and youngsters. David Amoo, Milan Jovanovic, Dani Pacheco, David Ngog, Christian Poulsen, Paul Konchesky, Nathan Eccleston and Danny Wilson started for Hodgson, Rodgers gave the starts to Adam Morgan, Andre Wisdom, Oussama Assaid,
Jack Robinson and Conor Coady. playing at left back for Stewart Downing in their home Europa League.
Jordan Rossiter, Pedro Chirivella and Cameron Brannagan also featured in their final months before being handed over to Klopp. Unsurprisingly, supporters don’t take too kindly to such attacks, even before considering what has followed in the eight years since the last competition.
Competing in three Champions League finals in the last five years, Liverpool will go into the Europa League final as clear favourites. And while it’s obviously not where they want to be, now they’re in it, they want to win it.
“Obviously we all wanted to be in the Champions League by the end of last year’s season. We fought for it, but unfortunately we didn’t deserve it,” captain Virgil van Dijk admitted earlier against LASK. “We deserved the Europa League and we will give it everything we have. We want to give it everything we have and we want to try to win it.”
Meanwhile, Klopp made it clear how seriously he takes the competition when he introduced Liverpool’s Europa League opener and advised him to pick a strong side.
“We are here to compete, not to provide opportunities,” he said. “We don’t (just) give opportunities to our players or to them (LASK).”
But less than 24 hours later he made 11 changes to his side as his XI was confirmed to face LASK. There were still youngsters in his ranks and wing players such as Ben Doak, Stefan Bajcetic, Caoimhin Kelleher and Kostas Tsimikas were given a chance to impress.
“The first year I thought the Europa League was a bit too much for us until we got to the final,” admitted Klopp. “It was a different team, we weren’t ready and somehow we came through…
“It’s a different time, a different team. We are better prepared for the competition. That doesn’t mean we’ll make it to the finals. We enjoyed being here more because at the time we had no idea what to expect.”
The Europa League is no longer a handicap for the Reds and now for the veterans of Europe, they know exactly what to expect.
And even with most of the changes, they could still start Virgil van Dijk, Darwin Nunez and Luis Diaz, the latest confirmation of how strong Klopp’s “recharged Liverpool FC” really is.
In truth, for 45 minutes, this team was in danger of going viral for the wrong reasons against LASK themselves, falling to Florian Flecker’s excellent long-range strike.
Their Austrian hosts dared to dream before Klopp’s Reds brought them back down to earth as their quality shone through. Nunez had already equalized from the penalty spot before reinforcements arrived from the bench, including £95m midfield pair Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szobozlai. Mohamed Salah joined them 13 minutes later when the Egyptian king completed the scoring late on.
Klopp will continue to roam the Europa League, but this Liverpool team is more than strong enough to do so. Favored for a reason, the Reds want to win and against LASK they showed just that after a bad start.
