Galatasaray boss Okan Buruk pinpointed the loss of Victor Osimhen as the turning point in his team’s Champions League collapse at Liverpool.
And he also criticised Pawel Raczkowski after the fourth official was pressed into service after World Cup final referee Szymon Marciniak was injured during the warm-up.
Galatasaray’s hopes of defending the 1-0 round of 16 first leg lead they secured in Istanbul last week were emphatically dashed when they were thumped 4-0 at Anfield on Wednesday evening.
And Buruk said: “It was perhaps one of the best games for Liverpool this season. The turning point for us from a psychological point of view was when we lost Osimhen through injury.
“When he was on in the first half he was thinking of his arm too much during the game. Him not being 100% hurt us in the transitions and how we press high up.
“At the beginning we were a pressing team, but after the first half Liverpool had higher confidence and we had lower confidence.”
Buruk was unimpressed with stand-in referee Raczkowski and added: “We were expecting one of the best referees in the world but his replacement was one of the worst referees we have encountered.
“But it was a game Liverpool deserved to win and I’d like to congratulate them. They have qualified but in this game we couldn’t do exactly what we wanted.
“I thought we played very bad. But I don’t want to single out any player. When you’re 1-0 down at half-time and your keeper has just saved a penalty, our performance should have been better in the second half but it was even worse.
“Liverpool have a lot of experience and an away game here is not easy. But our away performances and home performances in the Champions League have been very different.”
Galatasaray suffered another injury blow late on when substitute Noa Lang appeared to have part of his thumb severed when it became caught between two advertising hoardings when he attempted to keep the ball in play.
“Lang is going to hospital,” said Buruk. “He has an issue with his finger, we will know what he has at the hospital and if he needs an operation.
“Osimhen said his arm was hurting and he wanted to get out of the game at half-time and he’s going to the hospital as well.”
