Relief for Jurgen Klopp as Liverpool keep quadruple dream alive after Villarreal scare

Jurgen Klopp was apprehensive. He felt he needed more than motivational words, which are one of his fortes as a manager, to remind his players that their flimsy opening 45 minutes, their disjointed passing and pressing had been entirely out of character.

So he asked his analysts to seek out some video of what Liverpool had done well in the first half of the second leg of their Champions League semi-final at Villarreal.

His back-up team filed quickly through the clips. But they had bad news for the Liverpool manager. They could find no sustained period of play that showed off Liverpool, one of the most in-form teams in Europe, doing what they do best. Klopp’s men had been outrun and out-thought by a Villarreal who were sharper, more energetic and more disciplined. “We played into their hands,” said Klopp. “Our movements were wrong.”

It was an extraordinary comeback from Villarreal. Two-nil down from an Anfield leg in which they had not had a legitimate shot on target, the team who sit seventh in La Liga, who come from a small, unfashionable town which is barely a pinprick on the map between Castellon and Valencia, had fought their way back to 2-2 on aggregate with 45 minutes left to play, with the home fans in the tight Estadio de la Ceramica noisily sharing their belief in a miracle recovery.

Had Unai Emery, the Villarreal manager, asked for encouraging highlights to be replayed to his players at half-time on Tuesday, he could have taken his pick from a dynamic first half. He could have shown Boulaye Dia, who would normally rank as his fourth or even fifth-choice to start up front, the expert way he put Villarreal 1-0 up on the night with not yet three minutes played. He could have replayed the second goal, from Francis