This season Liverpool has defeated Manchester City at home and road and overcome Real Madrid in the Champions League, but Jamie Carragher believes that the victory at AC Milan was their most important of the season in September.
The Arne Slot team is clearly at the top of the Premier League table after Wednesday's matches. The Reds defeated Newcastle United in Anfield, with Arsenal able to draw only 0-0 earlier in the day in Nottingham Forest.
Forest is the only team that has defeated Liverpool in the Premier League this season and won 1-0 in Anfield in September. The Milan match came three days later and a second straight defeat could have stumbled the manager before he started correctly.
Liverpool fell in the back of that match within five minutes, with Christian Pulisic the net. However, they came back to win 3-1 at the San Siro, and Carragher pointed to the importance of the competition for the season of the Reds as a whole.
“I thought, you just called the forest game, and the forest competition came very early in the season,” said Carragher on the stick to football podcast, brought to you by Sky Bet. “And I think a game that was really important, nothing to do with the competition, they played AC Milan away.
“I think AC Milan scored within three or four minutes and it was that thing they would eventually win; I think it was 3-1. I just look back on that game, rather now because you mention Forest, and I think that was a big moment for the manager.
“If you lose at home in Forest and then in Milan, the first game in the Champions League, you lose away – that was probably a huge turning point, that AC Milan game. They are still not the AC Milan of old, but it is still San Siro, a big game.”
Slot outlined the importance of avoiding a second defeat in the aftermath of the Milan victory. “Losing Saturday was a blow and to be early tonight 1-0, you wonder how we react,” he told Amazon Prime video after the game. “But if you can play so well that it is – I will not say a shame – incredibly you lose at Bos at home if you can play like this today.”
After he admitted to Pulisic, Liverpool went five straight matches without a single goal in the Champions League. They were at the top of the league table with 21 points of a possible 24, and pointed a round of 16 meeting with Paris Saint-Germain.
The Reds have also remained unbeaten in the competition since that defeat at home against Forest in September, which extended that run in the competition to 24 unbeaten games with their midweek victory. By the time they were confronted in second place in May, the title could already be in the bag.
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