Liverpool and Klopp face big task to limit fallout from Real Madrid fiasco

B efore reliving Liverpool’s latest torture at the hands of Real Madrid in several post-match interviews, Jürgen Klopp delivered a telling instruction to an angry home dressing room. The reaction is likely to have repercussions beyond a season of alarming regression.

“I told the boys that a defeat is a defeat if you don’t learn from it,” the Liverpool manager said. “The start was outstanding, us in a nutshell, and that’s what we have to keep doing. If we allow this one game to be really influential we are really silly; 5-2 can be damaging but I have to make sure it is not.”

Klopp’s message was telling because it recognised the implications of a game that was not just any other game or any other defeat, but unlike any Anfield encounter in his European adventures with Liverpool. It spoke of the task he faces of containing the fallout from the worst home defeat in Liverpool’s European history. Klopp has had the challenge of lifting bruised morale since the deflating finale to last season’s pursuit of the quadruple. And of repairing all season the defensive and midfield frailties ruthlessly and coolly exposed by Real. The response has been fleeting and seriously flawed, in line with Liverpool’s explosive start to the last-16 first-leg tie and their subsequent collapse.

Reports of Liverpool’s resurrection after 2-0 Premier League defeats of relegation-threatened Everton and 10-man Newcastle were greatly exaggerated, including by Klopp. There was also an element of denial in Liverpool’s manager and players pinning Tuesday’s chastening defeat on their own mistakes and Real’s ability to punish them. Yes, there was an extensive list, from Joe Gomez’s positioning and body shape for the first goal, Alisson’s clearance for the