A couple of weeks ago Liverpool had an easy time of it when taking on Red Star Belgrade and Anfield and the 4-0 victory didn't flatter them, it could have easily been by a few more. But the Serbian side proved to be a completely different animal when it comes to visiting them in on their own patch and with the roar of 50,000 fans encouraging them to chase down every loose ball, and cheering every tackle they defied the odds and picked up a historic victory.
The team news offered a few surprises, Klopp opted to again go with the 4-3-3 he started with for the poor first half against Arsenal and bringing in Joel Matip in place of Joe Gomez, Daniel Sturridge in place of Roberto Firmino and swapped Adama Lallana for Fabinho. They were pretty bold changes by Klopp, Joe Gomez has been exceptional this season and Fabinho put in a great performance in the previous game against Red Star at Anfield while Sturridge doesn't seem to ever make an impact when starting games anymore and seems more suited to coming off the bench. Red Star made multiple changes from the team who visited Anfield most notably Ebecilio was replaced in the attacking midfield role with former Chelsea player Marin and Boakye was swapped out for Pavkov up front.
I always feel the home crowd can influence games and drive their players to perform that much better and Liverpool have benefited from this many times in the past when the fans have had Anfield rocking, Red Star fans did their part for the side this time and were exceptional right from the moment the players walked out onto the pitch up until the end of the game. Even though the television screen you could sense the atmosphere was electric and it seemed to have the desired effect on the players as the Red Star players all performed magnificently while Liverpool's seemed spooked.
After a cagey opening 15 minutes, Liverpool had their opportunity to take the lead and silence the crowd. Adam Lallana flicked the ball on to Sadio Mane who skipped away from his marker and carried the ball into the box, he pulled the ball back to Robertson who couldn't strike it clean and the ball fell to Daniel Sturridge. It was a glorious chance, 6 yards away from goal with the keeper flapping. It seemed the perfect chance and the perfect player to take it, but he lashed at it and fired it over the bar. It was an extremely easy chance and an uncharacteristic error from Sturridge who had seemed to have found his form when he scored a beauty against Chelsea earlier in the season.
There were more uncharacteristic errors moments later when Virgil van Dijk made a mistake putting the Liverpool defence under pressure forcing them to concede a corner. From that corner, the two changes in the Red Star attack linked up and made Liverpool pay. Marko Marin took the corner, curling the ball right onto the head of Milan Pavkov who nodded it down into the bottom corner to make it 1-0 for the home side. Minutes later James Milner was under pressure and played a sloppy pass back inside that fell to Marin who gave it to Pavkov. Wijnaldum was onto him but was unconvincing with his attempts to challenge and Pavkov carried the ball forward shrugging off the Dutchman, about 25 yards from goal he launched a rocket of a shot and delivered the ball back into the net passed Alisson making it 2-0. The Red Star players and fans were on cloud nine as Liverpool were left to rue their mistakes.
At halftime, Klopp made 2 changes, off came Sturridge for Firmino and Trent Alexander Arnold was replaced by Gomez. Liverpool attacked much more in the 2nd half and had another great chance to get a goal that this time fell to Sadio Mane, but sadly he couldn't make a clean connection and it was easily blocked by a defender. For all the possession they had and attacking Liverpool were doing it still never felt like a bombardment as the Red Star defence seemed to deal with everything quite comfortably. It wasn't until the 71st minute that Liverpool would actually have a shot on target and that was a tame effort easily stopped.
With this result and Napoli and PSG ending in a 1-1 draw, Group C has been blown wide open with 2 games remaining there are 2 points separating all 4 teams. Napoli and Liverpool both have 6, PSG 5 and Red Star 4. Liverpool will still feel confident about their chances of qualifying but will be majorly concerned about their recent form. From the last 9 games in all competitions, they have won just 3. Up next they have a home fixture against Fulham who is also struggling for form before they go to Paris and meet PSG in their penultimate group game.