Ruthless PSG prove that not even Anfield has an infinite capacity for miracles | Jonathan Wilson

Often in the past Liverpool has demanded and Anfield has delivered. Past glories perhaps shouldn’t influence the present, but they do; precedent begets belief. That’s part of the mythos of the great stadiums, how they develop a life and an identity of their own. But a club cannot simply give itself to an arena and hope that it will do the job that players and management and the executive body cannot. No ground, not even Anfield, has an infinite capacity for miracles.

Just because Liverpool came from 3-0 down to beat Barcelona in 2019, there’s no reason to believe they could overhaul a two-goal deficit against Paris Saint-Germain in 2026. Anfield did its bit on a windy night on which early drizzle gave way to teeming rain. The rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone was suitably stirring, the noise from both sets of fans boisterous. But it was not enough.

Really this tie was decided in the first leg last week – which arguably would have been true even had Liverpool got back into it, if only on the grounds that PSG had not racked up the lead their superiority suggested they should have.

Liverpool came closer than it had seemed likely they would. They arguably put PSG’s defence under more pressure than they had last season, even if the 4-0 aggregate looks far worse than that penalty shootout defeat. They got a round further than they had last season. But there wouldn’t be many who would describe this season as an improvement for Liverpool.

This was one of Liverpool’s better performances of recent weeks. In isolation it could perhaps have been written off as one of those things: beaten by the better side over the two legs. All games, though, inevitably come with context. It perhaps doesn’t edge Arne Slot any closer to the door but it denies him the most obvious escape route – possibly the only escape route.

Perhaps it would have been different but for Matvey Safonov’s save from Milos Kerkez followed by Marquinhos’s brilliant block on Virgil van Dijk on the half hour. And perhaps it would have been different but for the incident a minute before that when Hugo Ekitiké, Liverpool’s liveliest player in the early minutes, slipped under no pressure and seemed to damage his achilles. Three times he tried to stand up and three times he collapsed before being carried off. The role of misfortune in the decline of great sides should never be ignored.

Liverpool’s Hugo Ekitiké feels the pain after going down injured in the first half, and he was soon to leave the Anfield pitch on a stretcher. Photograph: Jon Super/AP

It had been only the third time Ekitiké and Alexander Isak had started a game for Liverpool together. Isak had been a risk, starting his first game in five months, a wild throw of the dice from Slot, perhaps remembering how effectively Liverpool had attacked with the two in tandem away to Eintracht Frankfurt.

Slot had said he did not expect Isak to last the game and withdrew him at half-time, but by then the partnership had already been ended.

Scans may offer a more positive picture but the body language of other players and medical staff was that this was a serious problem. Ekitiké didn’t seem in great pain, the look on his face of shock and confusion rather than agony, but the scene as he lay flat on his back perhaps realising that his World Cup participation is probably in doubt was none the less poignant for that.

But even the fact this was only the third time the two had started together highlights the obvious question arising from the summer: what was the plan? Were Ekitiké and Isak envisaged as strike pairing, only to be scuppered by Isak’s disrupted pre-season and then injury? Was this shape, a diamond, with Florian Wirtz at the front of midfield, the idea they were working towards? The three, signed in the summer for a total transfer outlay of £320m, have played a total of only 117 minutes together. And that perhaps tells its own story.

With Ekitiké gone and replaced by Mohamed Salah, the stage was set for one last great Anfield night for the Egyptian. But the Salah of this season is not the Salah of old and, while there were some good touches, there were also plenty of moments when the image of what he might once have done drifted across the pitch only to be banished by the reality.

By the end Liverpool past had been joined by Liverpool future. There were a couple of glimpses of Rio Ngumoha’s dancing feet, and one effort cutting in from the left saved well low down by Safonov but he had barely got going when Ousmane Dembélé finished the tie off.

Quite apart from their movement and interplay, there is a tremendous decisiveness about PSG in front of goal, which is something Liverpool have lacked all season.

Anfield did its best but, ultimately, it cannot make a disjointed team down on its luck beat the European champions.