Liverpool's Europa League Rollercoaster: From Early Struggles to Victory

On Thursday night, Liverpool’s new recruit, Wataru Endo, had a disappointing debut in the UEFA Europa League match against LASK. The Japanese midfielder, who joined the Reds from Stuttgart this summer for £18 million, struggled to impose himself on the game and made several errors.

He misplaced passes, lost possession, and failed to track back defensively. He was also the target of criticism from some Liverpool fans on social media, who dubbed him “Henderson 2.0” in reference to the former Liverpool captain who had a similar style of play but was often underappreciated by the supporters.

Endo will need to adapt quickly to the Liverpool system and improve his performance if he wants to win over the fans and earn a regular spot in the team. After failing to sign Lavia and Moises Caicedo, Liverpool went for Endo and signed him for about 20 million euros from VFB Stuttgart, but few starting matches did not go in Endo’s way as he failed to cope with Kloop’s driving midfield tactics, which is more of attacking than defending.

The first half was not quite good for Liverpool as the giants failed to level the score, and in the 14th minute, LASK got the first goal which Florian Flecker scored. However, Liverpool did not start with their first-choice lineup, which caused them to be behind the score in the first half.

Darwin Nunez scored the leveler for Liverpool from the penalty spot in the 56th minute, and after giving out many misplaced passes in the 61st minute, Wataru Endo was replaced by Alexis Mac Allister. Soon, Luis Diaz scored the 2nd goal of the match, and Gravenberch gave the debut assist to give a lead to Liverpool. Then, in the 88th, Mohamed Salah sealed the game with an amazing goal. However, Liverpool has one big problem now with the midfield area, which is still not working under Kloop properly.