Firstly, I was very happy with the starting 11. That's our strongest available team at the moment in my opinion.
I thought it was an odd game. We won 7-0 and strangely I don't even think we played particularly well either. Don't get me wrong, we were in full control throughout but when you think of a 7-0 thrashing then you would usually presume it was an explosive dynamite type performance but I don't think we ever got out of second gear! Spartak were absolutely awful and we just breezed through that with minimal effort.
The ref gives the pen in the first couple of minutes and once coutinho bags then Spartaks heads dropped. They knew they needed atleast two goals and it was always going to be too much of an ask.
The second goal was the best goal of the night for me. Some really good crisp passing, cutting them open and then a great finish from couts. Game over.
From then on it was just a training exercise. We scored some good goals and if we upped the tempo it could have easily been double figures if we really wanted too.
We kept possession well tonight and despite making a couple of his usual daft challenges early on, I thought emre can did well on the ball. Wijnaldum also did a lot of work then probably went unnoticed.
The front four are lethal and it's scary how good they are. Great to see them all get on the score sheet. The ev must be shitting themselves.
Back four looked very steady too. Spartak posed no real threat but they handled the few bits and bobs thrown at them very well.
I've got to say I've been very impressed with karius this season too.i know he is going to come up against much bigger tests but he looks a lot more calmer and composed now. As soon as he catches the ball he's sprinting to the edge of his box ready to throw it out and it's so refreshing after seeing Mignolet hold onto it for minutes at a time. Mignolet must only be a mistake away of karius becoming our number 1 in the league now.
So happy to be in the KO stages. First time since 2009? Wow. That's criminal.
There will be other teams who are bigger favourites than us but I think that suits us perfectly. We must be that team that the likes of Bayern, psg, Barca are dreading of getting. They are expected to beat us quite comfortably yet our attack is as good as any and we are capable of doing some serious damage.
Well done reds. A very professional performance tonight.
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