Liverpool were the favourites to win the competition but that was before a shocking 3-0 defeat at Anfield against the Serie A side in the first-leg of their quarter-final tie.
It leaves them with a mountain to climb in the second-leg which takes place on Thursday night at the Gewiss Stadium.
It’s been an awful couple of weeks for Jurgen Klopp’s side who have also gone from leading the Premier League title race to third and two points behind Manchester City after a draw at Manchester United and defeat to Crystal Palace.
With momentum in the league poor, it is possible that Klopp will write the Atalanta clash off and focus his efforts on the title run-in, but former Liverpool star Murphy doesn’t believe that will be the case.
He backs the manager to name a strong side and pull of a shock comeback, but in order to do so the Reds must score early on.
‘The team selection [for the first-leg] has been criticised and probably rightly so,’ he told talkSPORT.
‘Too many of the senior players not on the pitch and then he [Klopp] changed it at half-time so he knew his mistake, but by then Atalanta had some momentum and it was a brave performance from them. They went for it, they made some chances, they took him.
‘But the reality is they’ve taken a defeat at home that nobody expected against a team that were brave enough to have a go and I don’t think Klopp’s going to make the same mistake in terms of selection. I think he’ll go super strong.
‘I think we’ll see chaos. I think we’ll see Liverpool go 100 miles an hour from minute one and take a huge risk and just try and score the first goal. And the thing is with Atalanta they are not the type of team to shut up shop, so we could see chaos.
2023/24 Europa League winner odds:
Bayer Leverkusen – 5/4
Atalanta – 9/2
Roma – 6/1
Benfica – 9/1
Liverpool – 10/1
AC Milan – 12/1
Marseille – 16/1
West Ham – 25/1
Odds courtesy of Betfair
‘Do you know what it wouldn’t surprise me if Liverpool win. It really wouldn’t. I think they do [win], honestly I think they will.
‘It was a few years ago but they went there and beat them five in the Champions League. [Diogo] Jota got a hat-trick, Salah scored. Those players are still there.
‘They’re not a brilliant team and they’re a forward-thinking team and if Liverpool get the first goal a few of them could get a bit nervous. It’s going to be chaos.’
Liverpool did indeed win the first ever meeting between the two sides 5-0 in November 2020 in the UCL group stage, though Atalanta won the reverse leg 2-0.
And of course the Reds have a knack for staging 3-0 comebacks in Europe, doing so in the 2005 Champions League final against AC Milan and in the semi-finals against Barcelona in 2019 before going on to lift the trophy.
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