After Liverpool went down 5-2 in Anfield against Real Madrid, it was pretty clear who would be going through to the next round of UCL. That heavy defeat at Anfield was a shock for Liverpool when they conceded 5 goals after going up by 2 goals. Real Madrid becomes a different team when they play UCL even if they struggle in the league. In the second leg of their round of 16 fixture while a slim hope was there for Liverpool to make a comeback as they previously had done; but against Real Madrid, it was not enough. Real Madrid won the match by 1-0 making it 6-2 on aggregate. Karim Benzema was the only scorer at the 78' min.
At Bernabue it was always tough to make a comeback. First of all, Real Madrid is known as a mentality monster; they are the one who writes dramatic scripts of comebacks in UCL like the last season & not the other way around. Comeback in the Home of Mentality Monsters looked pretty unrealistic after the 1st leg. Moreover, Real Madrid has retrieved most of the players from last season, the team that made comebacks after comebacks at every stage of UCL and went on to win the Title against all odds.
Real Madrid really wrote history last season and hence it looked pretty unlikely that this team would blow things up at their own home this season. Real Madrid's league performance has been poor but not letting let-downs in the league affect UCL matches is really a Real Madrid thing and maybe soon enough football schools will start teaching Madrid mentality as a different topic to budding players.
Liverpool's season has been going pretty awful and that 7-0 drubbing of United at Anfield is the only bright spot in this season. Liverpool is out of all cup competitions and European tournaments for this season and maybe it would do some good for them in the league as their focus would be on one competition only and this might help them to secure a UCL spot in Premier League for the next season. Liverpool probably needs a rebuild of other defense and midfield which has let them down times and again this season.
Losing against Real Madrid in UCL pretty much every season is becoming like a nightmare for Klopp and a habit for Liverpool; of which the fans would be outraged. Getting thrashed by 5-2 at Anfield on a European Night is no joke & would be a matter of humiliation for Liverpool fans. But surely Klopp given his reputation would figure something out about fixing the squad for the next season and tackling the Real Madrid threat in UCL.
Guih