Liverpool must do what Jurgen Klopp warned against after Atalanta humbling

Speaking on Sunday after Liverpool’s frustrating draw at Manchester United, Jurgen Klopp said it would be the dumbest thing for his players to go chasing goal difference in their quest for the Premier League title.

In the Europa League, though, they now have no other choice after Anfield witnessed arguably the most humbling and humiliating evening of the manager's long reign.

It was bad enough that the Reds crumbled to an alarming 3-0 reverse, matching their heaviest margin of defeat at home in European competition.

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The performance, though, was the greatest concern, a genuine abomination of a display missing all the main constituents of a trademark Liverpool showing. Where was the intensity, the desire, the organisation, the goal threat?

Arguably for the first time this season, the spectre of the ongoing Premier League title challenge loomed a little too large. Atalanta treated this as their most important game of the season. For the Reds, though, it was perhaps not even the second-most significant assignment of the week.

And that lack of proper preparation – from a much-changed team to, in a real rarity, not being able to cope with the physical threat and pace of the visitors – ultimately proved extremely costly.

Credit must go to Atalanta boss Gian Piero Gasperini, whose decision to man-mark the Liverpool midfielders paid off handsomely. Rarely can Alexis Mac Allister have been so ineffective, while Wataru Endo was harassed from the first minute to the moment he was put out of his misery when substituted. But, in truth, none of the players should be