Stumbling their way to Bergamo with some close wins against Sheffield United and West Ham in the Premier League, there was some momentum on Liverpool’s side entering their clash against Atalanta, but few could have predicted Tuesday night’s outcome.
After all, they were facing last year’s quarter-finalists who came rather close to knocking out Paris Saint-Germain, and with Gian Piero Gasperini’s men currently fourth in Serie A, a 5-0 rout wasn’t really on the cards.
However, Diogo Jota, deployed as the main striker in Jürgen Klopp’s attack, had other plans, walking away with a hat-trick, as Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané bagged one each early into the second half.
Liverpool were so impressive that even Gazzetta dello Sport found it hard to be too critical of Atalanta, stating that there was simply ‘too much quality and too much intensity’ for an ‘unrecognisable’ Atalanta, ‘who looked like the frightened kitten of the first Champions League game last year’.
As they put it, ‘it’s ok to lose, ok to accept the huge difference in quality, but taking five slaps without reacting except at the end (…) is a bad sign’.
All they can now do is ‘learn from this lesson and show up in Amsterdam prepared for the exam’.
Corriere dello Sport start their article in the exact same vein, describing Liverpool as having ‘too much quality and too much intensity’.
Atalanta ‘evidently received a hard lesson’, swamped by a ‘red tide’ that left Atalanta ‘almost frightened’, unable to contain it.
In the end, their defence, especially for the fourth and fifth goals, were ‘punctually cut into slices’, leaving Gasperini with a few more questions ahead of their next game against Ajax.
All in all, the Italian media see it more as a Liverpool masterclass than an Atalanta failure, which should serve Klopp and co. well going into the weekend in the ever important game against Manchester City.
