Liverpool’s Champions League campaign continued with a second win from two games, a 2-0 over Bologna on Anfield’s first big European night in 20 months.

Here are our reviews of this match.

Alisson – 6

Beaten early on but by a player miles offside.

Made his customary couple of claims and catches to settle us, and tipped one shot wide in great fashion, but Ali also played a big role in some frankly stupid pressure on our goal in the first half with a series of mistakes in possession and poor choices of passes.

Trent Alexander-Arnold – 7

One of those matches where his passing range was on point from the first whistle, though maybe he could have sent Darwin Nunez in a split-second earlier before the flag went up.

However he caught the ‘fucking about’ bug and nearly gifted a goal during the aforementioned ridiculous first-half spell.

Much better second half and only really got beaten by Dan Ndoye once.

Ibrahima Konate – 7

Excellent, but also involved in those absurd moments of passing out and straight to Bologna’s attack. Booked for seemingly being pulled about by a defender on our corner? Which was quite bizarre.

Huge block just after 2-0 and much, much more secure in the second half in general.

Virgil van Dijk – 8

Shown a yellow card for being considerably bigger than Bologna’s forward line. Otherwise pretty much spot-on with his defensive reading and mopping up.

Didn’t have too many enormous moments but showed the consistency and calmness we clearly needed and won a boatload of duels.

Andy Robertson – 6

Much of both teams’ attacking play and buildup went down the opposite flank, so it was large spells of running without touching the ball for Robbo at times.

Generally strong in the challenge when he made them and solid with his passing, but never found a man with his crosses

Ryan Gravenberch – 8

Some brilliant turns and powerful runs from deep in truth, the kind few have the combination of power and technique to pull off, but also he surged beyond his zone a fair bit which left us open at the back.

Overall another very positive showing.

Alexis Mac Allister – 8

Showed some magic touches and opened the scoring early on with a great pass, surging run and neat tap-in from a few yards.

Seemed to benefit from freedom to run on when the Reds were in possession, but defensively maybe we needed a bit more at times.

Second half that appeared to be the message as he was the deepest of the three quite often, while his touch and tenacity rose a notch to go with his excellent vision.

Dominik Szoboszlai – 8

A ‘clearly up for it’ game from very early on, the Hungarian was quick to nip in and win the ball multiple times and played a lovely return pass in the build-up to Mac Allister’s goal.

Did the most of the three central players to earn back possession

A better on-the-ball showing than he has had recently, though one or two passes into the box weren’t quite on point – arguably as a result of the runs ahead of him.

Definitely a big performer on the night when others were losing or lacking concentration.

Mohamed Salah – 8

Had one assist in 10 minutes and weight when it was otherwise a one-on-one situation.

Still, Salah is not one to hide after falling short: he arrowed one just past the post after the hour mark, failed to make another square for another chance…then absolutely blockbustered one curler into the top corner.

Relentless. Goal and an assist on a night when he didn’t play all that well…so…did he, actually?!

Luis Diaz – 7

Lots of endeavour and bustle, though much of it was outside the box or in extremely deep areas – he is a fighter and a ball-carrier.

Almost excellent, but not quite with the end product for it: just before he went off he summed up his own showing by dribbling across the entire defence and penalty box…but never finding the right moment to shoot and eventually sending a pass wayward.

Darwin Nunez – 6

Restored to centre-forward after Jota’s minor injury and could have perhaps scored after 90 seconds, had he been on the front foot.

Involved in the buildup to the opener though

Beyond that, was too quiet, too often. His touch wasn’t assured enough, his runs weren’t aggressive enough.

Early in the second half he failed to read a pass into feet and that was it for Arne Slot – the boss threw his arms up, turned around and gave the call for Diogo Jota.

Substitutes

Diogo Jota (on for Nunez, 59′) – 6 – Lots of movement but nothing fell his way in the box.

Kostas Tsimikas (on for Robertson, 70′) – 7 – Won a couple of tackles, made a few runs. Oddly got booked for winning one of those tackles by one of the shittest refs you’ll see all year.

Cody Gakpo (on for Diaz, 70′) – 6 – Not one of his more electric efforts off the bench.

Conor Bradley (on for Alexander-Arnold, 85′) – N/A – Game time.

Curtis Jones (on for Szoboszlai, 85′) – N/A – Probably disappointed not to start this one.