Rasmus Hojlund, the forward for Manchester United, was seen partaking in Atalanta’s jubilations following their impressive 3-0 triumph over Liverpool in the Europa League last Thursday night.
The team from Liverpool was left in shock at their home ground, Anfield, after Gianluca Scamacca netted twice and Mario Pasalic added a third late in the game, granting the Italian club a significant lead before the second leg of the quarter-finals in Bergamo.
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Hojlund, who had a brief stint at Atalanta before his significant £72 million transfer to Manchester United the previous summer, evidently remains connected to his past team.
In the wake of Atalanta’s win, Hojlund shared an image of the squad’s celebrations at Anfield, captioned with ‘Mola mia,’ a local Bergamo expression meaning ‘never give up.’
With this setback, Liverpool faces a daunting task to advance and keep alive the possibility of securing a treble in what is anticipated to be Klopp’s final season at the helm.
Giving his verdict on Liverpool’s first defeat at Anfield since Real Madrid won 5-2 in the UEFA Champions League 14 months ago, Klopp said: ‘It just was a really bad game, oh my god.
‘So we started well, really well, and then didn’t continue. I think even before they scored but we just lost the plot a little bit, like we were everywhere and nowhere. [The] midfield was spread like that, right midfielder left side, left midfielder, striker… I didn’t recognise that, that was really strange. In football terms that’s tactical discipline.
‘But anyhow we had a big chance I think from Darwin [Nunez] and then unlucky with Harvey [Elliott]. Then they scored the goal and then we kept playing into their hands, to be honest.
‘A really good example [of] how it could have looked is the goal we scored because that’s [the] striker wide, full-back underlap in a massive space, arrives, has all the time in the world, passes the ball and Mo [Salah] scores the goal. It was then offside but that’s one thing. We should have had these situations more often.
‘[We] didn’t use the man-marking besides that, I would say, a lot. Then Diogo [Jota] came on, we cannot use him now just because we think now he’s the solution or whatever. He needs time as well but he came on and just [had] no bad experience or whatever in the whole game for weeks and months, so just happy to play – and you could see that changed a lot.
‘We played a bad game, we deserved to lose and we must feel that now. But the boys have exactly this night to feel bad about it and then we have to build up again for the Crystal Palace game, so that’s how it is.
‘You ask me probably about the game next Thursday but there is Crystal Palace in between. So, congratulations Atalanta, really well done.’
