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• Liverpool fail to overturn first-leg deficit as Atalanta end Europa League hopes

  Liverpool could not conjure up another remarkable comeback when they needed it most as their 1-0 victory over Atalanta in Bergamo failed to salvage their Europa League hopes.

  Mohamed Salah’s early penalty raised hopes all the pre-match reminiscence of the famous 4-0 against Barcelona in the 2019 Champions League semi-final would be replayed but their continued struggles in front of goal saw them exit 3-1 on aggregate.

  Jurgen Klopp’s first season ended with defeat in the final of this competition and his last also culminated in more disappointment – the only major trophy he has not won in his nine years at Anfield.

  His greater frustration will be the manner in which his side threw things away a week ago to make the prospect of bouncing back, without the power of Anfield as they had five years ago, a more remote possibility.

  Klopp had urged his players, as he had against Barcelona, to “fail in the most beautiful way” and while some of their play in the opening 45 minutes – driven by a resurgent Trent Alexander-Arnold – was scintillating it brought only one goal.

  Now Liverpool have just six games in the Premier League, trailing Manchester City by two points, in which to ensure their beloved manager does not leave with only the Carabao Cup from a season which teased a quadruple only a month ago.

  On the positive side having Alexander-Arnold will help on that front and it is unlikely Atalanta had experienced anything like what he produced particularly in the first half.

  Perhaps not surprisingly for a team entering the last-chance saloon, Liverpool set off at a rapid pace but it was not so much the intensity of their approach but the whirlwind they generated with the perpetual motion.

  With Alexander-Arnold making his first start since mid-February after injury the team dynamic changed dramatically as the defender was given licence to roam and create.

  However, it was from more orthodox right side from which he won the penalty with a cross which hit the arm of Matteo Ruggeri after Luis Diaz had raced down the left and cut inside.

  After the inevitable VAR check Salah stepped up to send goalkeeper Juan Musso the wrong way – and in a nice piece of symmetry in the same seventh minute in which Divock Origi sparked the comeback against Barca.

  Unfortunately that is where the similarities ended as Musso was more alert to smother Diaz before he could get a shot off from Cody Gakpo’s one-move turn and pass.

  The movement from the players was dizzying at times as the fluid switching of positions regularly saw Salah playing deeper and more central with Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson both popping up in the centre-forward role – when the former was not dictating play from deep or the latter was playing as a left-winger.

  Salah has been well below his best since his own return from injury in February and he never looked comfortable when put clean through by Gakpo, playing a key part in the continuing the merry-go-round, and his lob over Musso never looked like troubling the goal.

  The hosts had taken a good 25 minutes to get to grips with the maelstrom which threatened to engulf them but Aleksei Miranchuk scuffed wide their only shot of the half with an offside flag denying Teun Koopmeiners.

  Atalanta centre-back Isak Hien was perhaps fortunate to only be booked for deliberate handball to stop Diaz running through onto Salah’s pass shortly before half-time and the interval offered them some respite.

  They actually had the better chances of the second half, Ederson and Koopmeiners both shooting straight at Alisson Becker.

  With 25 minutes to go, Klopp gambled and introduced Diogo Jota and Darwin Nunez but the fluency of the first half had already disappeared and the changes only compounded that.

• FC Halifax back in the play-off places after draw with Oldham

  FC Halifax moved back into the play-off places in the National League as Adan George rescued a point in a 2-2 draw at home to Oldham.

  The visitors took the lead in the 18th minute through Dan Gardner’s half-volley from a corner before Rob Harker levelled for the home side a minute into first-half stoppage time, smashing the ball home.

  Oldham were awarded a penalty when Joe Garner was fouled in the box and Gardner restored Latics’ lead from the penalty spot in the 58th minute, but The Shaymen levelled again in the 72nd minute through substitute George’s smart finish from a narrow angle.

  Halifax climb back into the play-off spots on goal difference where they are tied on 68 points with Aldershot, while Oldham remain 10th.

• Emiliano Martinez says being Villa’s penalty hero against Lille was ‘destiny’

  King of the dark arts Emiliano Martinez said it was his destiny to be the penalty shootout hero as Aston Villa booked their spot in the semi-final of the Europa Conference League

  The Argentina goalkeeper, who helped his country win the World Cup 18 months ago in similar circumstances, produced more heroics against Lille, saving spot-kicks from Nabil Bentaleb and Benjamin Andre to earn a 4-3 shootout win after the quarter-final had ended 3-3 on aggregate.

  There was plenty of his trademark gamesmanship on show as he shushed the baiting French crowd, who had not forgotten what happened in Qatar, and then caused confusion by receiving a yellow card from the referee in the middle of the shootout, having already been booked in normal time.

  But bookings are not carried forward into the shootout meaning he could stay on and send Villa into a first European semi-final since 1982.

  “It has been a hell of a ride all of my career. I am a believer and a hard worker and it was my destiny today,” he said on TNT Sports.

  “I always say in all my career, I owe my team-mates in those moments, even when we were watching Real Madrid last night the manager was saying we might go to penalties and in those moments I own my box.”

  On the shootout drama, where he was shown a yellow card by referee Ivan Kruzliak, he said: “It’s all about reputation for time-wasting because the other goalie was doing exactly the same thing.

  “I got a yellow after 30 minutes and we were losing the game so I don’t know what the ref wants from me.

  “Then there was no ball in the penalty spot and I was asking for a ball from the ball boy and I get booked; I just don’t understand the rules.”

  Martinez’s heroics rescued Villa as they were not deserving of victory, having been outplayed for the majority of the second leg in France, with goals from Yusuf Yazici and Andre overturning a 2-1 first-leg advantage.

  Matty Cash’s 87th-minute strike sent it to extra-time, with Martinez coming up trumps in the shootout to give boss Unai Emery an eighth successive European quarter-final victory.

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  The Spaniard, so prolific in the Europa League with Sevilla and Villarreal, will be eyeing another European trophy.

  And with Villa leading the race for a top-four finish in the Premier League which would achieve Champions League qualification for the first time in the club’s history, the Argentina international says something special is on the horizon.

  “This group of players and the managers are special, the owners get involved as well, they are always behind us,” he said.

  “It feels like we are going to do something special, I don’t know if it’s Champions League or I don’t know if its Conference League but we try to do everything we can to push the football club.”