The return of those famous Champions League nights haven't exactly been as expected for the Anfield faithful so far. An unconvincing win against Ludogorets followed by defeat in Basel leaves Brendan Rodgers needing his players to pick up a win over this double header with reigning champions Real Madrid, or at the very least, avoid two defeats.
A win won't be easy, standing in the way of Liverpool are Real Madrid's latest set of galacticos, led by Carlo Ancelotti. Galácticos (Spanish for galactics) are expensive, world-famous Real Madrid football players recruited during the "galácticos" policy pursued during Florentino Pérez's presidency at Real Madrid, where in his first tenure he purchased at least one galáctico in the summer of every year, the most recent Galactico's of year gone by are Toni Kroos (€25M from Bayern Munich) and James Rodríguez (€80M from AS Monaco) - who both joined in 2014. The most notable signing since Cristiano Ronaldo is Gareth Bale, who returns to England for the first time with his Real Madrid side since joining the Spanish giants from Tottenham, for a measly €100m.
Liverpool come into this game on the back of a 3-2 win at QPR, but flattered to decieve as they were fortunate to beat the Premier League's basement side. Ex-Liverpool defender and current Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher was critical of his old side, saying “Liverpool were awful, even when they were winning 1-0 I was thinking ‘who is going to be man of the match? Who has done well?' I couldn’t think of a Liverpool player who performed well. I thought Simon Mignolet made a couple of very good saves but he’s also conceded a couple of goals; he could have done better with the last one."
One piece of good news for Liverpool is that Carlo Ancelotti has confirmed Gareth Bale is a doubt for Wednesday's game, "Bale had a problem in his glute. He wasn't comfortable so we preferred to not risk it for this game (Levante) and we will evaluate it in the next few days. He wasn't left out due to rotation." Ancelotti also confirmed other injury doubts for the game : "We now have a few days to evaluate the situation with Bale, Benzema, Varane, Sergio Ramos and all those that were out for this game."
Liverpool fans will realistically be expecting very little for this double header, but with Basel having their double header against Ludogorets, Liverpool will need to acquire some points against Ancelotti's men or else they could be left in a situation where their progression hinges on their final Champions League game against the Swiss side in December. Real Madrid have won their last seven games, scoring 31 goals in this time. This works out at over four goals per game. A stat that will send shivers down the spines of Liverpool fans after their defence struggled to deal with Bobby Zamora's Queens Park Rangers at the weekend.
It's not all doom and gloom, here's a video of the last time Real Madrid came to Anfield....
The time of game that is a dream for the neutral awaits. With goals aplenty expected, this is surely the highlight game of match day three.