📝 Liverpool and Bayern first leg ends in Anfield stalemate | OneFootball

Bayern Munich held Liverpool to a goalless draw in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie on Tuesday.

Both sides had chances to score inside the opening half an hour, with Mohamed Salah forcing a smart stop from Manuel Neuer and Kingsley Coman flashing a shot into the side-netting at the other end.

But the best chance of the first half fell to Sadio Mané when a blocked Naby Keïta effort squirmed through to the Senegal striker unmarked inside the area. However, he was only able to screw his shot wide of Neuer’s goal.

Moments later, Mané again went close with an overhead kick, but the sides went in deadlocked at half-time.

The second half unfortunately yielded little by way of clear-cut chances. The closest either team came to scoring was when the ball deflected off Andrew Robertson and dangerously flashed across goal, but Salah was unable to convert from a tight angle.

👨‍🎤Hero and villain

Hero: Naby Keïta

Had his best game in a Liverpool shirt to date and was full of running and clever touches in the middle of the park.

Villain: Sadio Mané

Wasted two golden opportunities to score in the first half and will be hoping they don’t come back to haunt his side in the second leg.

📖 What we learned from this game

Liverpool have now played 35 matches in all competitions this season. Virgil van Dijk has featured in 32 of them. Questions were asked before this game about how they would cope in the absence of their suspended talismanic Dutchman and the answer was not bad at all. Their 4-3-3 low block with Jordan Henderson as the midfield anchor forced Bayern wide, where Liverpool’s full-backs were more often than not able to comfortably snuff out the danger. Van Dijk will be back for the second leg, and Bayern’s task will be even tougher than it was at Anfield on Tuesday.

Bayern missed the experience of Arjen Robben and Franck Ribéry on the flanks and will be hoping to have both players available to start the second leg. Serge Gnabry and Coman didn’t have bad games and looked lively at times, but they too often ran into dead ends and lost possession, while Robert Lewandowski was starved of decent service.

🤔 What this means

The two sides will meet again at the Allianz Arena on Wednesday 13 March.

But Bayern will be without Joshua Kimmich, whose first-half yellow card means he will now miss the second leg through suspension.

❓ What’s next?