Kolkata: Tottenham Hotspur are up next and if there is an away fixture that can provide succour for Liverpool it will be Sunday’s trip to London. Spurs have won only two of their 15 home games in the Premier League and on the night Liverpool lost in Istanbul, they conceded thrice in the first 15 minutes.
The other thing in Liverpool’s favour is that the 0-1 defeat to Galatasaray can be turned around.
Galatasaray’s away record in Europe this term includes defeats to Eintracht Frankfurt (1-5), Monaco (0-1), Manchester City (0-2) and Juventus (2-3).
Take those strands of thought away and all that remains is what has been Liverpool’s problem all season. Fragile at the back, especially during set-pieces, and erratic in front. Galatasaray too were much of the same leading to a contest that had only Mario Lemina’s seventh minute goal separating the teams going into Anfield next Wednesday.
Galatasaray scored from their first corner after Liverpool got their marking all wrong leading to Victor Osimhen outjumping Joe Gomez and Alexis Mac Allister and finding Lemina who swooped to conquer. It was their first in Europe but at home Liverpool have shipped 14 goals from set-pieces in the league in 2025-26. It was also an early indication of things to come.
Osimhen, whose tifo was unfurled at the start, broke through in the 10th minute but didn’t get the return pass from Baris Yilmaz. Two minutes later, the big Nigerian striker leapt highest in the Liverpool penalty box for a free header he couldn’t keep down. It is the kind of miss that can make the difference between elimination and a Champions League quarter-final.
Giorgi Mamardashvili, in for the injured Alisson, got a forearm to a Noah Lang cross-shot and had to fly to keep out a free header from Davinson Sanchez. The 17th minute substitution of the Tottenham Hotspur goalie Antonin Kinsky was proof of what can happen when a player is got in from the cold. Kinsky had not started since October and made two errors that led to goals on Tuesday. That tells you how good Mamardashvili was in his second start since November.
Through the night, Ibrahima Konate was error-prone and needed VAR to chalk off an Osimhen effort. Mac Allister struggled in the midfield. Mohamed Salah became Liverpool’s most-capped player in the Champions League but his 81st match will not be a memorable one. He was taken off on the hour mark and his replacement, Andy Robertson, had to retrieve the situation soon after coming on when Virgil van Dijk let his pass go and Gabriel Sara ran towards the Liverpool goal. It was that kind of a night.
Yet, things could have been different had Florian Wirtz done better with Ugurcan Cakir out of goal after Lemina played a poor square-pass. Wirtz also failed to test Cakir following a neat build-up and managed a weak header near half-time. Galatasaray were giving the ball away easily but Liverpool, who had lost 0-1 to them in September struggling to deal with their counter-attacks, could not capitalise.
Hugo Ekitike failed to beat Cakir, who got big on the forward in the 66th minute and couldn’t get on top of a header in the 89th as the problem of Liverpool’s new signings not settling down surfaced again.
“Sometimes we treat chances like we will get 10 chances more,” said Arne Slot after his 100th game as Liverpool head coach.
Slot has 62 wins, sharing the top spot with Kenny Dalglish. But most of that came in a season of mellow fruitfulness after he was bequeathed a squad by Juergen Klopp. Champions Liverpool lost four times in the league in 2024-25. This time, after 29 matches that number is nine. Which means the FA Cup, where Manchester City wait in the quarter-final, and Champions League are Liverpool’s only chance for a trophy this time. On the basis of current performance, a presence in Budapest on May 30 looks a long way off.
