Lost the ball 21 times - LFC player was terrible against Atlanta, may be dropped

Joe Gomez will be fearing for his place in the Liverpool starting XI after two successive poor games with Trent Alexander-Arnold returning from injury.

Gomez was poor against Manchester United and while neither of the Reds last two games are solely the fault of Gomez, he will be kicking himself for his recent performances.

Last night, he was extremely wasteful and struggled to have any impact on the game from fullback.

Of course, he's not expected to pull strings from right back like a quarterback like Alexander-Arnold does but Gomez lost the ball 21 times against Atalanta.

His pass success rate was just 79% as just 38 of his 48 passes found the mark. He wasn't the only one, to be fair, but it was still lower Liverpool's average pass rate of 84%.

I won't focus too much on Gomez as his performance was not the only poor one - just the most glaring. There was a moment that Klopp was overcome with rage at Gomez when he decided to shoot from 30 yards in the 78th minute.

It was a wasteful moment and Gomez got the full force of Klopp's touchline mania.

It's difficult to diagnose a defeat like this one as there are so many factors but one that not enough people are talking about is fatigue.

Klopp does a good job of rotating - he's actually one of the best - but when a season is as long as this one has been with so many injuries and games, it's typical for players to grow exhausted by this stage of the campaign.

Liverpool also employ a demanding style of play which will make managing player loads particularly difficult when every game is essentially a final.

Fortunately, Alexander-Arnold, Diogo Jota and Alisson Becker are back in training as is young Stefan Bajcetic, who has been out all season but is finally back on the grass at the AXA Training Centre.