Fenerbahçe 3-2 Liverpool: Muriqi completes comeback as Reds pay for set-piece frailty
Liverpool led twice in Istanbul and lost anyway. Archie Brown scored one and made one as the substitute Vedat Muriqi headed the winner.
Dr Talal Othman, General Manager — GCC Sport
There are defeats inflicted on a team and defeats a team inflicts on itself. This was firmly the latter. Liverpool had 68% of the ball, took 22 shots to Fenerbahçe’s 17 and led twice at the Chobani Stadium. They still went home with their first Champions League defeat of the season, because when it mattered they could not defend their own box.
It started well enough for Andoni Iraola’s side. In the 25th minute a loose ball dropped to Trey Nyoni, whose volley took a deflection and wrong-footed Ederson. At 19 he became Liverpool’s second-youngest scorer in the competition, behind only Trent Alexander-Arnold. The lead lasted four minutes. Mason Greenwood’s free-kick clipped the wall and skidded into the bottom-left corner, leaving Alisson stranded.
Iraola went to his bench after the interval, introducing Alexander Isak, Cody Gakpo and Florian Wirtz, and it paid off quickly. In the 69th minute Gakpo reached the byline and lifted a fine cross for Isak, who headed in from close range with his first touch. It was his first Champions League goal for the club, and it looked like the decisive one.
Instead it triggered the collapse. Four minutes later Fenerbahçe worked a short corner and floated it into the area. Gakpo’s attempted clearance went astray, and Archie Brown, lurking at the far post, swept it in left-footed to make it 2-2.
Brown was not finished. In the 79th minute he swung in a cross towards a crowded Liverpool box, and Muriqi, on for Romelu Lukaku since the 63rd minute, rose above everyone to head into the bottom corner. It was his first Champions League goal, and the stadium erupted.
The numbers make grim reading for Liverpool. All three goals came from set pieces or their second phases, only the second time the club has conceded three non-penalty set-piece goals in a Champions League game, the first being against Sevilla in November 2017. Fenerbahçe also edged the expected-goals count, roughly 1.7 to 1.6, despite seeing the ball for barely a third of the match. One side knew how to wait; the other did not know how to hold on.
Iraola sent on Lewis Koumas for Nyoni in search of a reply, but Liverpool created little. Alexis Mac Allister’s 85th-minute booking said more about frustration than threat, and Gakpo’s curling 25-yarder that flew just over was the closest they came.
For Dirk Kuyt, a Liverpool favourite in his playing days, it was a night to savour against his old club. Fenerbahçe’s first win of the league phase lifts them to 19th with five points. Brown, booked for dissent in the first half, was the game’s outstanding player.
Liverpool stay on nine points from four games but have now lost twice in four days, following Sunday’s 1-0 defeat at Arsenal. The pattern is becoming hard to ignore: a side that creates but cannot protect, that leads but cannot finish the job.
Match facts
- Score: Fenerbahçe 3-2 Liverpool (HT 1-1)
- Competition: UEFA Champions League – League Phase, Matchday 4
- Venue: Chobani Stadium, Istanbul
- Referee: Clément Turpin (France)
- Fenerbahçe scorers: Greenwood 29, Brown 73, Muriqi 79
- Liverpool scorers: Nyoni 25, Isak 69
- Fenerbahçe: Ederson; Semedo, Škriniar, Oppong, Brown; Guendouzi, Kanté, Yüksek; Greenwood (Aktürkoğlu 79), Lukaku (Muriqi 63), Kahveci
- Liverpool: Alisson; Gomez, Jacquet, Van Dijk, Tsimikas; Mac Allister, Nyoni (Koumas); Muñoz, Szoboszlai, Ngumoha; Barcola
- Player of the match: Archie Brown (Fenerbahçe)
