Match report as goal-line technology helps award Mohamed Salah's late scrambled goal before VAR steps in to allow Darwin Nunez's injury-time second; Liverpool will be unseeded in last-16 draw
Wednesday 2 November 2022 16:28, UK
Late goals from Mohamed Salah and Darwin Nunez helped Liverpool to a 2-0 win over Napoli but the Italians still finished top dogs in Champions League Group A.
With a lack of jeopardy on the game neither team really moved out of second gear as the chances of Liverpool overturning a four-goal swing to top the group never threatened to materialise.
However, two Liverpool goals did come late on when Salah prodded home from close range after Nunez's header had been clawed off the line by goalkeeper Alex Meret before Nunez grabbed himself a goal, awarded by VAR, after tapping home from Virgil van Dijk's initial header which was saved.
Napoli thought Leo Ostigard had headed them in front on 53 minutes but VAR overturned the goal after a three-minute check that found the centre-back had been ahead of the play.
For Liverpool, it was a far more positive night at Anfield than Saturday's 2-1 defeat to Leeds in the Premier League.
Jurgen Klopp was delighted with how Liverpool restricted such a free-scoring team like Napoli.
He said: "I would have enjoyed the game even without the goals but they are important stuff. We showed a really good reaction. Being compact makes all the difference. All of a sudden we have the challenges in the right spaces and we are difficult to play against.
"If you have seen what Napoli can do it was a really good game for us. I saw a lot of courage and bravery. Two set-pieces got us the points and to take 15 (points) in this group is absolutely insane."
The last-16 draw, in which Liverpool will be unseeded, will be held at 12pm on Monday November 7.
It wasn't one of Klopp's epic European nights under the Anfield lights but it was a landmark one as he became the fourth Liverpool manager to reach 400 games in charge of the club, after Tom Watson, Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley.
It's hard to know which Liverpool will turn up this season after an erratic run of results and it wasn't clear in this encounter for long periods.
Klopp's men played with sharpness for short bursts in the first half with Thiago testing the gloves of Meret from range and Curtis Jones - playing as part of the Liverpool front three - heading over following a clever flicked cross from Roberto Firmino.
Napoli are top of the table in Serie A and had won 13 consecutive matches in all competitions before this Anfield trip. They sensed their moment of making it 14 in a row and looked to have taken their chance from a set piece when Ostigard was left free to head home from six yards. However, after a VAR check of three minutes it was deemed that a part of his shoulder was in an offside position to the delight of the majority of Anfield.
The noise was lifted for a short period but with no real desperate urge to win the tie and Tottenham looming on Sunday, a winner for either team looked unlikely. When it came, it was scrappy but Salah didn't care. Nunez - who replaced Jones with 17 minutes left to play - sent a powerful header towards goal that Meret juggled just about away from his goalline but Salah was quickest to react and just about bundled it over the line, meaning he has scored in his last five Champions League matches.
The scoring wasn't over as with the last attack Van Dijk's header from another left-wing corner drew another save out of Meret, who could only fumble the ball towards his goal where the offside-looking Nunez smashed it home. The flag went up but after a second lengthy VAR check it was deemed Nunez was being played on by a Napoli defender.
Klopp said: "I don't doubt the quality, no one has doubted the quality. That's been part of the problem as we don't show consistency. That's why I mentioned the second goal against Leeds as an example of a situation where you defend with all you have but we were chasing the game.
"When we defended, we defended with all we had tonight. We were compact.
"Nobody has forgotten what we did last season, the boys haven't forgotten it but it's not important. I know people are going to get sick of me saying it but we really have to fight through and then the real football that we can play can come back. But tonight we showed everything. Really good pieces of football and the defensive stuff was a high level. Napoli are a real force so it could have been really difficult tonight. Consistency and stability is what we need to get."
One negative area was James Milner coming off with a head injury at the start of the second half with Liverpool, which was not the only potential concussion injury suffered by a Premier League player in the Champions League on Tuesday.
Tottenham's Heung-Min Son was withdrawn in the first half of Spurs' win in Marseille following a collision with Chancel Mbemba.
Klopp confirmed that the club would be monitoring Milner closely.
"He [Milner] seemed to be fine now but we have to probably do further checks," said Klopp.
The two head injuries come in the same week the PFA renewed their calls for temporary concussion substitutions to be introduced.
Temporary changes would allow teams to make an interim substitution whilst checking a player's head injury away from the pitch, before reversing the switch if the player is fine to continue.
Current regulations, which the PFA describe as "jeopardising player health and safety", allow only permanent concussion substitutions whereby a team is granted an additional change if a player is forced off with a head injury.
"Permanent substitutions do not allow medical teams to assess a player with a potentially serious brain injury in an appropriate environment," said Dr Adam White, Head of the PFA's dedicated Brain Health department.
"The rules as they are create an extremely challenging situation and offer no support to medical personnel."
UEFA has not integrated the existing permanent concussion substitution rule into major European competitions such as the Champions League, Europa League and Nations League.
Dr White added: "This situation needs to be addressed urgently. As a bare minimum UEFA, as one of football's major bodies, must lead by example and introduce the available permanent concussion substitution rule. This an issue the PFA will be raising with UEFA directly."
Sky Sports' Lewis Jones writes:
Trying to articulate and intelligently dissect where it has all gone wrong for Liverpool this season has made many heads explode in recent weeks. How can a team go from beating Manchester City to losing two games on the spin to Nottingham Forest and Leeds?
Is it fatigue? Is it due to a lack of investment? Could it quite possibly be the manager?
Mere mortals like us should probably just listen to Jurgen Klopp. He believes it's all about how secure and aggressive they are in being able to stop opposition attackers overloading their defensive line. In a word, it's all about Liverpool being "compact". It's a word he used multiple times in his post-match assessment of their 2-0 win over Napoli. Yes, the game was a bit of a dead-rubber but Liverpool should take massive kudos from being able to keep a clean sheet against such a potent attacking side that had won their last 13 matches across all competitions, scoring 39 goals in the process. At Anfield, they were restricted to an expected goals tally of just 0.43 with Alisson having to only deal with two pretty tame efforts on his goal.
As Klopp referenced, Liverpool were more of a cohesive unit, especially in midfield where Thiago and especially James Milner, before he departed with a head injury on 47 minutes, made it very difficult for Napoli to get their creative forces into dangerous positions. And when you keep it tight at the back, it only takes one moment to win a game and Liverpool's prowess at set-pieces came to the fore yet again to score the two goals.
This type of steady, compact football philosophy may not be the Klopp way but for now until the World Cup break, it looks like Liverpool's best way of picking up results.
Liverpool have three more fixtures ahead of the World Cup. They face Tottenham on Super Sunday this weekend, live on Sky Sports from 4pm; kick-off 4.30pm. They will then host Derby in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday November 9 before their final Premier League match against Southampton on Saturday November 12; kick-off 3pm.
Napoli also have three Serie A fixtures before the World Cup break, facing Atalanta, Empoli and Udinese over the next 10 days.
