Sam Allardyce returns to the club he played for thirty years ago to try to save them from relegation.
This started badly, with a 3-0 loss to local rivals Aston Villa. Allardyce made one change to that team, forced by Jake Livermore’s red card, bringing in Callum Robinson. West Brom set up in a 4-5-1 formation, sort of.
Jurgen Klopp made two changes to the side that thrashed Crystal Palace, returning Curtis Jones to the starting eleven as Naby Keïta was once again ruled out through injury, while Mohamed Salah came back in for Takumi Minamino. They set up in their usual 4-3-3 formation.
Although on paper West Brom were organised in a 4-5-1, in practice it was more like a 6-4-0. Grady Diangana and Robinson were expected to track Liverpool’s full-backs, so they were frequently pulled back into the defensive line, while Karlan Grant would drop off to the left, leaving no one up front.
This made attacking impossible for West Brom in open play. If they won the ball back, they would hit it long, but with no one to fight for the ball they were simply handing it back to Liverpool. This actually invited Liverpool’s press, with some West Brom players looking to put their foot on the ball to wait for an attacking option to open up or at least give themselves a breather from the onslaught, giving Liverpool a chance to surround them before they inevitably cleared it again.
West Brom did at least push men forward at set-pieces, crowding an area for a long pass and looking to win the second ball.
Unsurprisingly then, it was Liverpool who dominated. You might typically say that Jordan Henderson dropped into the backline, but it was more a case of Fabinho and Joël Matip pushing forward next to him in this match, as with no striker to worry about they were comfortable pushing far into West Brom’s half. They would circulate the ball from side to side, covering the width of the central channels, while Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold pushed forward down the flanks. Robertson in particular had a lot of joy overlapping down the left, sprinting in behind before Robinson was even aware he was making a run.
The three attackers, joined by Georginio Wijnaldum, would switch between coming short and running in behind through the middle, while Jones generally operated in a slightly deeper position. This was presumably so that Liverpool could use Jones’ ability to thread a pass to find a way through the low block, however with eight West Brom players tightly packed in this central area, it wasn’t realistic and most of Jones’ passes went wide.
This set-up may have left no attacking threat whatsoever from West Brom, but it did form a formidable defence. Nevertheless, it didn’t take long for Liverpool to break it down. The centre-backs and Henderson all had time to pick out balls over the top to Liverpool’s forwards making runs in behind and, what’s more, they weren’t having to do it from far away – Grant dropping off to the left meant they could all advance high up the pitch so these weren’t long, hopeful balls but short, dinked ones. Liverpool were continually dropping these passes into the box and, although West Brom’s defenders would drop off and cut them out, all it would take was one mistake to put Liverpool through on goal.
Around ten minutes in, Salah dropping off drew Kieran Gibbs forward, creating a three-on-three situation at the back, but the opening goal was more the fault of Semi Ajayi, who rather than staying goalside attempted to intercept Matip’s pass and missed it, allowing Sadio Mané through on goal. While the goal can be pinned on an individual mistake – and a bit of individual quality from Mané – West Brom’s strategy meant their defenders were so busy that mistakes became inevitable.
The hope of frustrating their way to a point was gone already, yet rather than opening up to try and get back on level terms, West Brom maintained this same system for the rest of the first half. At the time, this seemed foolish – they were already behind and throwing away the time they had to get an equaliser.
With the benefit of hindsight though, it looks smarter: not only did West Brom get in at half-time to regroup still at a manageable scoreline, they had managed to lull Liverpool into a slower rhythm. Had they opened up straight away, a still alert Liverpool would have likely blown straight through them. By half-time though, Liverpool’s game was entirely about patiently trying to break down West Brom’s packed defence.
At the break, Allardyce shifted West Brom into more of a proper 4-5-1. Grant stayed up in attack, providing an outlet for long balls, either running onto them with his pace or laying them off to a midfielder behind him to spread wide as his teammates broke forward. Meanwhile the wingers stopped following Robertson and Alexander-Arnold all the way into defence, putting them in better positions to break forward and support Grant.
Liverpool seemed unaware of the changes though. They continued to push Robertson and Alexander-Arnold high into attack and they continued to flood the box with attackers. This left them exposed as West Brom countered, with so many of their players ahead of the ball whenever they lost it. Whereas in the first half they were losing the ball then immediately given it back as West Brom hoofed it long to nobody, now they were losing the ball and conceding a chance.
The obvious thing to do was revert to a more normal game: hold back some men in midfield to stop the counters, re-establishing control of that area, then from there pin them back again. Instead, having spent 45 minutes doing nothing but trying to overload West Brom’s defence, they seemed shocked at the change of pace and unprepared to do anything to stop it.
West Brom’s equalising goal from a set-piece came quite late, in the 82nd minute, but it had felt inevitable.
Liverpool were once again left looking for a breakthrough, but with Jones taken off for the more direct Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and the likes of Xherdan Shaqiri and Minamino ignored in favour of Divock Origi, they appeared even less well-equipped to do so, simply raining down crosses on the West Brom backline.
The early goal should have made this an easy game for the champions, yet it ended up more Fulham than Crystal Palace.
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