Introduction
Before the international break on November 2024, Liverpool are currently top of the league with nine wins from 11 games in the league and also top of the league of the new format of UEFA Champions League with four wins without dropping any points. It must have been one of the hardest jobs to take over the team from the legendary manager, Jürgen Klopp, but he surprised many football fans by showing them the results.
One of the key features of current Liverpool would be that even if they faced some problems in the first half, they can tweak the pressing shape or positions in possession to find solutions. Against Leverkusen in the Champions League, they were dominated by the opposition due to the lack of pressure on the ball in the first half, but in the second half, they decided to press man for man, which forced them to kick the ball away and Liverpool gained their moment and found the back of the net four times in this half. For another example, additionally, in the league game against Brighton at Anfield, they were 1-0 down at the half time, but they tweaked the pressing shape to apply more pressure on the ball and had Trent Alexander-Arnold position himself narrower to push both Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister higher to strengthen their attack, which made it possible to turn the game around to win 2-1.
Even through there is some flexibility in tactics, the individual quality up front is the main threat. Of 31 goals they scored in the league and the Champions League, eight goals were scored from regaining the ball in their defensive third and playing quick counterattacks, which occupies more than a quarter of their total goals. From their defensive half, they can play into the space behind the opposition back line, where Mohamed Salah, Luis Díaz or Darwin Núñez easily run past the opponents to get the ball and they would beat the opposition goalkeeper to score goals in a few seconds. No matter how much opponents push forwards and dominate Liverpool, they are always in danger of conceding a goals from nothing.
In this article, Liverpool under the new head coach are going to be analysed to identify why they are in such a good form and try to find out if there are any weaknesses or how Liverpool can develop even better.
Recent Line-ups
Here are Liverpool’s starting players for the recent six competitive games including the Carabao Cup game against Brighton away from home.
As the first goalkeeper Alisson Becker got injured in the game against Crystal Palace, who will return after this international break on November, Caoimhin Kelleher played the last six games. With six games in the league, Alisson recorded 88.2% of saving percentage, which is the top of the league so far, while Kelleher also saved 77.8% of the shots on target in his five league games, which is the fourth best in the league. Overall, Liverpool are the second best in the league in terms of the difference between the post-shot expected goals conceded and the number of actual goals conceded, which is +3.7, which means Alisson and Kelleher saved more than three goals in 11 games (Bournemouth are the top of the league with +5.3). The stability of the deepest men in the own half has helped Liverpool to be the best defensive team so far, allowing only six goals from 11 league games.
The pair of the midfielders, Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch is extremely vital for Slot’s team because Mac Allister positioning himself behind the opposition pressing line to beat the opposition pressure in possession and Gravenberch’s ability to cover the vast midfield when pressing are the keys for the Reds. Especially, their shape in possession looks like a 4-1-2-3 or 4-2-3-1 depending on where Mac Allister is, but in general, they have the 10 step up to organise a 4-4-2 out of possession, so all graphics above show them in the 4-2-3-1 except for the cup game against Brighton which there was no pure striker up front.
From the next chapter, the tactics of Liverpool under Arne Slot are going to be analysed in detail.
In Possession
Although the shape in possession can be a 4-2-3-1 or 4-1-2-3 depending on the Mac Allister’s position, when playing out from the back, he often stays deeper to offer a passing lane to the goalkeeper or centre backs, forming the double pivots with Gravenberch in the deep midfield.
The key pattern to bypass the opposition pressing is Mac Allister drifting into the space between the left fullback and winger. The left fullback, Andrew Robertson or Konstantinos Tsimikas tends to drop deeper than Trent Alexander-Arnold on the right to stretch the gap between the left fullback and the left winger to create space. This pattern is often seen when Mac Allister is positioned bit higher.
After finding Mac Allister in that space, he can play a one-two with the left fullback who underlaps after playing forwards or switch the ball to the opposite side through the other midfielder or the dropping striker in the middle.
These are the ideal patterns of play when building up from the back, but more teams now press man for man, which makes it difficult for Mac Allister to face forwards after receiving the ball in the wide area. As he needs to face outside when receiving the ball because he is moving towards the touchline, he can be the pressing target for the opponents. Actually, when he is marked tightly, Liverpool often cannot find other ways to progress with short passes and they are forced to play long and hope for the attackers to win the duels up front.
However, before kicking the ball away in this difficult situation, there is one more step to utilise the space in the left side. When Mac Allister is deeper, it becomes the opposite 8 (or the 10) to drift towards the left side to create an overload.
It is easy for the opponents to keep Mac Allister away from the ball, but it is almost impossible to deal with someone who moves from one side to the other while marking Mac Allister. If the opposition ball side defensive midfielder follows Szoboszlai in the illustration above, Mac Allister would be free to receive the ball from the left fullback on the ball. This can be a dilemma for him.
One of the possible and popular ways to deal with it is having either of the centre backs jump to mark the spare player in between the lines. However, this leaves the back line three of 1v1s, which Liverpool will seek to exploit if the opposition does that.
They will play long, often targeting at Salah, and the receiver will flick it into the space behind the opposition back line or they play up-back-through with the other attackers. As the individual quality of them is one of the best in the world, which is also the source of their plenty of goals scored from attacking transition from the defensive third, it is reasonable for them to hope for it. However, this is not as high possibility as they play short and break the lines one by one. So like in the games against Chelsea or Leverkusen, if the opposition can manage Mac Allister or other 8s receiving the ball in between the lines and win the duels at the back, Liverpool are likely to suffer from lacking options of playing out from the back.
In the midfield, the objective is same. They try to find the 8s in between the lines and release the ball to the wingers to progress into the final third. Like the build up from the back, the fullbacks tend to stay deep to drag the opposition wingers out to create space for the 8s, who drift outside to receive the ball away from the opposition centre backs in case they are aggressive when the 8s receive the ball in the middle.
As soon as the ball is delivered to either of the wingers, Liverpool increase their tempo and many forward runs threaten the opposition back line.
There are a few differences in each side. When the left winger gets the ball, it is often the left fullback, Robertson or Tsimikas makes overlap or underlap to offer an option to penetrate the box. On the other hand, the striker or the 8 (or can be called 10) makes runs in behind to exploit the space in behind instead of Alexander-Arnold who prefers to receive the ball outside of the box and deliver it there.
It is difficult to illustrate how quick and fast their movements are, but in words, they make quick forward runs in behind and deliver crosses before the opponent can organise their defensive shape in the box. Of course, additionally, the players often swap each position, which means it can be someone else who makes these runs depending on the situation. But key point for them is the forward runs to break the opposition back line.
That is the first option. If the winger on the ball cannot find them or the opposition can set a deep defensive block, as the wingers are often positioned in the opposite side of their dominant foot, they can deliver in-swing crosses, which is the second option.
Again, the attackers in the middle make forward runs into the space behind the opposition back line and in-swing crosses towards the space in front of the goal are difficult for the defenders and goalkeeper to deal with. It is quite easy to find examples of goals from this pattern and even there is a goal from an in-swing cross which directly found the back of the net. Or, the wingers are capable of taking powerful shots from cutting inside.
So far, Liverpool do not suffer from lack of goals. Except for the game against Nottingham Forest at Anfield, they scored at least a goal this season. This might be thanks to the quality of the attackers rather than the tactics as a team, but flourishing their talents is also important in this sport.
One player I want to discuss is Alexander-Arnold. In his 11 league games, he made only an assist, which equals 0.10 assists per 90 minutes. This is the lowest in his five seasons and there are other drops in stats, shown in the table below (Most of them are the numbers of “Completed” not “Attempts”).
In the attacking third, all stats here are the lowest in his last five seasons. These are just numbers and there are many important things which cannot be described in numbers, but the drop of these numbers can tell something. Other stats related to the build up are listed in the table below.
As Liverpool seek to play through from the left side, the number of progressive passes decreased while the number of progressive carries increases because he is one of the destinations of the build up play and he is often given space to carry the ball forwards when receiving switches. This tendency of the build up relates to the drop of the number of switches, touches in the defensive and middle third or completed long balls.
The attackers flourish their talents, but how about Alexander-Arnold? His adaptation of Arne Slot’s style of play or better use of him can be vital for Liverpool to be better in possession further (they are really good now, though).
Out of Possession
Liverpool had been known for their aggressiveness in pressing since Klopp rebuilt the club and Slot has maintained this style of their game to some extent. They chase the ball continuously and apply pressure even on the opposition goalkeeper from the opposition goal kicks or the ball is played back. However, they often prioritise keep their compact shape to start to press in more organised way.
As it was mentioned, they start to press as soon as the ball is played from the opposition goal kicks. In this case, the right winger Salah positions himself higher next to the striker to be ready for applying pressure on the opposition left centre back instead of the opposition left fullback. In contrast, the left winger often looks after the opposition right fullback. The man who manages this asymmetrical shape is Gravenberch, who can cover the whole width of the pitch by himself.
It can sometimes be Alexander-Arnold who steps up to apply pressure on the opposition left fullback, but Gravenberch’s ability to keep shifting across the pitch to get closer to the opposition spare players behind Salah or even on the other side is exceptional.
However, as Liverpool initially do not prefer to go man for man, unwilling to have the centre backs step out of the back line to get tighter to the opposition spare players in between the lines, they sometimes let the opposition make the most of the overload at the back. In this scenario, Slot often allows the team to go man for man, especially having Mac Allister jump to mark one of the opposition defensive midfielders and the centre backs leave the back line to tightly mark the opposition spare players in between the lines.
This tweak is often made after a half time to adjust the opposition build up, which is one of the reasons of their tendency of improving much better in the second half. As it was mentioned, Liverpool prioritise to maintain the compact shape, they might not want to press man for man from the beginning of the game. However, even when Liverpool are in a compact shape, the oppositions often play through it easily. Let’s find out why it happens and why they have conceded less goals even though it happens.
Basically, the 10 (mostly Jones or Szoboszlai) steps up next to the striker, forming a compact 4-4-2. But the 4-4-2 is quite misleading because the wingers often position themselves higher than the front two, who focus on screening the passing lanes to the opposition defensive midfielders from centre backs. This type of pressing with a 4-2-4 rather than a 4-4-2 is one of the trends in recent football.
The key for this is to apply pressure on the opposition centre back on the ball with cutting the passing lane to the nearest fullback and force him to play back or kick the ball away. In order to make it successful pressure, the winger who applies pressure on the centre back on the ball needs to press quick enough not to allow the opponent to control the ball open and prevent the passing lane to the opposition fullback precisely. Additionally, the front two must screen the passing lanes to the opposition defensive midfielders because the press of the winger can be beaten by the passes from a centre back to a defensive midfielder then to a fullback. This often happens against Liverpool.
Firstly, the pressure from the wingers is not quick and fast enough, secondly, Núñez is not good at screening the opposition defensive midfielders, and lastly, the defensive midfielder (Mac Allister in the illustration above) often looks after the opposition player in front of the back line instead of the centre backs and is not able to jump to the opposition defensive midfielder who receives the ball. Although the last one was also related to high pressing against the opposition goal kicks, they still have room for improvement when it comes to pressing.
Even though their struggles in pressing, they have allowed only 0.84 expected goals for the opponents per 90 minutes, which is the least in the league. Arsenal follow Liverpool with 1.03, which means only Liverpool conceded less than 1.0 expected goals per 90 minutes. Additionally, average expected goals per shot which Liverpool allow is 0.08 and this is the third best in the league, following Arsenal and Nottingham Forest with 0.07. By the way, the biggest expected goals per shot which a certain club in the league have conceded so far is 0.16, which is double of Liverpool’s, and it is Man CIty’s. Although I did not have to mention Man City here, it is possible to say that Liverpool’s defence force the opposition to take more difficult shot than most teams in the league, which clearly indicates how good their defence in their defensive third is. Moreover, as it was mentioned, Liverpool’s goalkeepers Alisson and Kelleher have done amazing jobs so far as Alisson is the best and Kelleher is the fourth best in the league in terms of the saving ratio.
Another strength in their own half is the ability to exploit the space in behind the opposition rest defence as soon as they regain the ball back. They have scored eight of 31 goals in the Premier League and Champions League from quick transitions after winning the ball in their defensive third and this includes counterattacks from the opposition corner kicks.
Conclusion
It is always difficult to get results while experiencing the transition from a legendary manager to another. However, Liverpool and Arne Slot have made it compatible. Even though there are a few concerns about tactics both in and out of possession, the most players flourish their talent and this is one of the most important things in football. As long as they are fit, Liverpool will not stop their march to the glory. Thanks for reading.
