Napoli vs Liverpool summary: Napoli easy win | score | goals | highlights | Champions League 2022/23
Liverpool finished second in the Champions League last season, but you wouldn’t know it from tonight’s game. Klopp’s team appeared to be lacking attention, organization, and drive from the outset.
Napoli had already produced a good chance in the first minute, when Osimhen raced down the right and almost made Alisson pay for rushing off his line too quickly – the striker’s effort struck the post. Did Liverpool pay attention to the warning? They did not do so. Napoli were given space to play the ball to Zielinski at the top of the box, who had time to shoot. It was already wide, but Milner instinctively stretched his arm out, and the ball brushed against it.
Zielinski converted a penalty for the home team.
And only 10 minutes later (after having had the best of the play in the intervening seconds), Osimhen was taken down by Van Dijk (worrying for Klopp… Van Dijk doesn’t throw away penalties). The Nigerian striker seized the ball, only to have his shot stopped by Alisson; yet, that stop did not change the course of the game. While Napoli were wasteful, they were creating enough danger every time they moved forward that the second goal was just a matter of time, and it came from Andre Zambo Anguissa, following outstanding work by the man who set up the first goal, Zielinksi.
Osimhen, who had been energetic all evening, was taken off in the 41st minute after receiving a hit, and he was replaced by Atlético Madrid coach Diego Simeone’s son, Giovanni Simeone. He was signed on loan from Hellas Verona, but if Liverpool supporters thought he’d need some time to settle in, they were incorrect. He made it 3-0 four minutes after coming in with a straightforward tap in from Kvaratskhelia (who also had a fine game).
At halftime, the game appeared to be over, and it was when Zielinski scored immediately at the opening of the second half to make it 4-0.
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Although Luis Diaz scored nearly immediately and looked to believe he could turn the game around on his own, his Liverpool teammates were resigned to their destiny.
Napoli aren’t top of the Group after Ajax beat Rangers 4-0, but they’ll feel like they’re soaring tonight. Klopp and Liverpool are well aware that they have a lot of work ahead of them.
“We need to redefine ourselves,” says Klopp.
The immense success of the Joshua Tree catapulted Irish rockers U2 to massive popularity at the end of the 1980s, but when their second album, Rattle and Hum, failed to expand on what they’d done to that point…
It was time to demolish everything and start again. Achtung, Baby! It was as though they’d formed a new band overnight.
The point is, when you’re at the top, the only way to progress is to rethink everything. Following winning the Champions League in 2019 and becoming runners-up in 2021, with a type of heavy metal football brilliantly pounded out by a squad of sharp, deadly footballers, coach Jurgen Klopp stated it was time to “reinvent ourselves” after tonight’s thrashing by Napoli.
“It appears like we need to redefine ourselves,” he stated after the 4-1 loss. There are several deficiencies. “We have to strive to find a way to be significantly better in almost everything,” Klopp stated.
What that implies will be one of the season’s most intriguing tales. U2 abandoned classic rock in favor of hip hop beats, funk guitars, and a heaping helping of lyrical and theatrical sarcasm. What will Klopp do to revamp a Liverpool team that has strutted its thing around Europe in recent years?
