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Pre-match postbag. “Hoping to see Slotto run out to the centre circle and plonk a dirty great YNWA flag there to show he, us and them all mean business” – Ian Copestake
He’s making an oblique reference to this iconic moment in Galatasaray history, isn’t he, readers. The video below is well worth six minutes of your time. Not least because Graeme Souness’s pay-off at the very end is priceless.
Liverpool make five changes to their starting XI from the 3-1 FA Cup win at Wolves last Friday. Alisson is injured so Giorgi Mamardashvili takes his place in goal. Milos Kerkez replaces Andy Robertson at left back. Ibrahima Konaté returns in central defence, so Joe Gomez moves to right back, with Curtis Jones dropping to the bench. Rio Ngumoha and Cody Gakpo make way for Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike.
The teams
Galatasaray: Cakir, Singo, Sanchez, Bardakci, Jakobs; Torreira, Lemina; Lang, Sara, Yilmaz, Osimhen.
Subs: Sen, Guvenc, Sallai, Icardi, Sane, Akgun, Elmali, Gundogan, Kutucu, Asprilla, Ayhan, Boey.
LIverpool: Mamardashvili, Gomez, van Dijk, Konate, Kerkez, Mac Allister, Szoboszlai, Gravenberch, Wirtz, Salah, Ekitike.
Subs: Woodman, Misciur, Jones, Gakpo, Robertson, Frimpong, Nyoni, Nallo, Morrison, Ngumoha.
Preamble
Since winning the Champions League in 2019, Liverpool’s performance in the knockout stage of the competition has been, by their own lofty standards, little short of abysmal. Home and away R16 defeats to Atletico Madrid in 2020. A meek quarter-final surrender to Real Madrid in 2021. Home and away R16 defeats to Real Madrid in 2023. Last year’s flattering R16 win in Paris followed by defeat at home. To give fair measure, they did reach the final in 2022, and while that’s a fairly whopping great caveat, the overall point surely stands. Given their historical status as European royalty, the Redmen need to raise their game.
Which, to be fair, they’ve been doing in Europe this season. Their travails in the Premier League are well documented, but they won six out of eight games in the group stage, that 4-1 thrashing by PSV Eindhoven a really weird outlier. Their only other defeat was the result of an unfortunate and extremely soft penalty decision … the only problem being, it was at Galatasaray, which is the fixture they again head into tonight. And Gala are not a club Liverpool like playing: the Reds have won just one of five previous games against the Turks in the Champions League, and have never beaten them away. Throw in Gala’s exceptional home record in European Cup knockouts – they’re unbeaten in 10 since losing to Atletico Madrid in 1973, for goodness sake – and Liverpool have quite a lot of historical baggage to shake off if they’re to head back to Anfield with any sort of advantage.
So if all of that doesn’t tempt fate into gifting Liverpool a positive result tonight, we don’t know what else we can do. Kick-off is at 5.45pm GMT. It’s on!
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