By Josh Jaswal
Two complete opposites come up in the congested Christmas fixture list, as Liverpool in great form sitting at the top of the table look to create a bigger gap between first and second place. Their game against Tottenham two weeks ago showed they are not to be forgotten in the tittle race, with such an important result. With their extensive injury list and rocky start, Jurgen Klopp’s men are finally looking sharper, however Virgil van Djik is most certainly a big miss in defence.
On the other side of the coin West Brom are in 19th, with only one win in the Premier League this campaign. The sacking of Slaven Bilic two games ago for Sam Allardyce looks to be a disloyal yet rational choice to save the club’s season, with Big Sam’s track record of never being relegated, having saved Sunderland and Crystal Palace in bleak circumstances. If anyone can do it, Big Sam can.
Allardyce’s pragmatic, defensive style of play certainly doesn’t look easy on the eyes but it produces results, results which are ultimately the thing that defines you in football. For those that are fond of Italian football, Catenaccio certainly hasn’t died just yet – the evidence can be seen in this fixture as West Brom look to re-kindle their season at Anfield!
Tactics
Liverpool, still without heavy-hitters Thiago Alcantara and Vand Dijk, they line-up in their usual 4-3-3. Jurgen Klopp, a huge advocate on counter-pressing and transitional football, looks for his team to win the ball high up the pitch and be tireless in their ethic up and down. You will never see a Liverpool player catching their breath, ever.
In this system the full-backs Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson look to get extremely high to create width for the team, stretching the opposition’s defence and when on the ball are direct with crosses and passes. Off the ball they need to worry less about defence as Jordan Henderson, Georginio Wijnaldum and Curtis Jones sit more firmly in their central positions, looking to be aggressive to first and second balls and dominant in the air. On the ball they hold their positions and look to circulate the ball into wider positions or into Roberto Firmino.
Firmino, the false nine, is aggressive with his pressing off the ball and is usually the first defender to shape a pressing trap against the opposition. In possession, he will tend to leave his number nine duties and move to a number ten role, finding gaps between the lines as central midfielders constantly check their shoulders to see where he is. If the centre-backs decide to follow Firmino into midfield this leaves the gaps in behind for Sadio Mané and Mohamed Salah to run in behind and finish as inside forwards – something they both excel at.
West Brom on paper set-up as a 4-5-1, off the ball this looked more of a 4-6-0 with Karlan Grant the striker of the team moving to a left midfield position to close down Alexander-Arnold. West Brom played an extremely low block – the defensive line behind the box and the midfield line leaving no gaps, with barely a two metre difference between the lines. Grady Diangana and Callum Robinson would leave their midfield roles, dropping deeper off the ball to create a back six. Knowing how wide Liverpool’s full-backs get, this was needed to stop the chance creation from out wide.
The central midfielders, Conor Gallagher, Matt Phillips and Romaine Sawyers would shuffle across, making sure the middle wasn’t available. When Henderson decided to dribble forwards, one of the central midfielders would come out to press him, shaping towards the outside, making the middle unavailable. When space was found between the lines towards Firmino or Jones, one of the centre backs would step out to win the ball. Sam Johnstone in goal had to be aerially dominant to Liverpool’s early crosses, making claims and launching big kicks upfield.
In possession West Brom looked to exploit dead ball situations at goal-kicks and throws to launch their attacks. Long goal-kicks with the hope of knock downs to fashion out chances is where West Brom looked to build an attack. Set-pieces and corners are a forté of Allardyce and he is formidable at exploiting zonal marking, something Liverpool use.
Liverpool’s dinked balls, 1-0.
In the first half West Brom sat in deep with their 4-6-0/4-5-1, blocking central areas and making it tough to attack the wings. Salah and Mané had hardly any vertical space to run into and Firmino could hardly work between the lines because of how close West Brom operated. If a gap did form Semi Ajayi and Dara O’Shea were aggressive when Firmino tried to receive the ball, often coming out, not worrying about the half-space gaps because of how tight Darnell Furlong and Kieran Gibbs were to Mane and Salah.
Out wide, the wingers tracked Robertson and Alexander-Arnold. This gave Liverpool a chance to dominate possession and try and find the free space, with Henderson, Fabinho and Joël Matip all in acres of space to play. Due to West Brom’s superiority out wide, Liverpool would shift three or four players into wide areas to create a combination leading to a dangerous cross from either full-back. Due to the bodies West Brom had in the box, it made for lots of clearances, which added up to a total of 30 clearances between the back four!
To make use of how available Liverpool’s centre backs and holding midfielder were, they began to create earlier crosses and chipped balls in behind the West Brom defence.
A consistent amount of these dinked balls would cause the West Brom back six to drop even further and would cause one of two things as shown on the pictures:
A) a gap to form between the lines allowing Firmino and Jones to progress the ball. Henderson could have disguised a dinked-ball here to play to feet.
B) The midfield line drops closer to the defensive line which creates a gap around the edge of the box, which can lead to a clear long shot or chance creation. For example here, Fabinho lets fire.
More so ‘B’ occurred and it led to shots from Wijnaldum and Henderson, but as neither are strong in this field, they struggled to convert, especially with how crowded the box was. Furthermore when these dinked/curved balls came in, it was important for them to be fizzed in hard to take advantage of Salah and Mané’s quick movement. This is exactly how their first came, with Matip providing exactly this ball at a good angle in the right half-space. C shows how distorted both West Brom’s defence and midfield lines are from lots of heavy pressure, creating gaps which Mané exploited.
Liverpool had some success with the dinked balls, but thought cautiously as long balls bring a risk of a counter attack if not played precisely. However, at this moment West Brom were striker-less, giving Liverpool more chances to get these balls in.
Liverpool’s chance creation in the middle often comes through counter-pressing situations – as Klopp says “counter-pressing is the best number 10 in the world” – however this is with the expectation your opponent transitions from defence to attack.
During deep pressure in the first half, West Brom would clear their lines without aiming for anyone. If Liverpool did win the ball high, West Brom stayed in their defensive state making them very difficult to break down in the middle. This is where Allardyce wanted to keep Liverpool, which worked and can be seen on the diagram, showing the majority of Liverpool’s attacks came down the middle.
Eventually after the 30 minute mark, 1-0 down, West Brom would press asymmetrically. If the ball was Liverpool’s right side, West Brom’s left sided players would press, whilst the right sided players stayed in their defensive positions for cover.
The second half – A new West Brom
In the second half, West Brom took up the 4-5-1, with Callum Robinson looking to get in behind to make a 4-4-2 on the transition. As the Baggies sat slightly higher and looked to press Liverpool in the midfield, they began to recover the ball more, either looking to combine with their frontman Grant with third man run combinations or playing for a throw on the right hand side.
As you can see from the metric, this is where West Brom attacked the most, making use of Callum Robinson’s off the ball and crossing ability. This would therefore slow the game down to a pace Liverpool don’t play, with lots of standing and marking for dead-ball situations.
As mentioned, Liverpool’s main threat of attack through the middle is counter-pressing and, with West Brom stepping into a more attacking role, it left these spaces. However every time these opportunities arose, referee Kevin Friend called fouls consistently. It happened twice with Henderson, twice with Firmino, Mané once and then again with Rhys Williams, where Klopp lost it and took his frustration out on the referee, earning himself a yellow card.
As you can see from the fouls data, three of these fouls were most definitely in counter pressing areas. Whether it was West Brom tactically winning these fouls (Gallagher winning three fouls) or Friend wanted to cool the game down, it certainly had an effect on Liverpool’s attacking phase of play, slowing their game down even more.
Obviously West Brom enjoyed these moments and made use of them by getting everyone into Liverpool’s half, fashioning their own chances via long balls.
With this opportunity to counter-press Liverpool did have a disadvantage as now they had to play their dinked balls cautiously, wary of the threat of Grant next to their centre backs, ready to create a counter attack. This situation almost lead to a goal 71 minutes in, but Alisson Becker made a good save as Grant singled out young Rhys Williams in a one-v-one.
Once Matheus Pereira came on, West Brom began to enjoy a few more dead ball situations, as the Midlands side would initiate a man-to-man press in the final third. These situations came from two goal kicks towards the end of the game. As spoken about West Brom use these long kicks to create their route upfield and were aggressive in the midfield to win first and second balls. Interesting to note, this is something Liverpool are extremely strong at but lost out in one or two of these battles, potentially due to the stop start nature of the second half. A game they don’t want to play.
Two goal kicks out to West Brom’s right side led to duels, then West Brom winning the first and second ball. The first corner, Ajayi missed by a whisker. The second, a few minutes after, was played short, leading to a one-two, allowing Liverpool’s line to step up (something they always do) and leaving Ajayi free for a header. 1-1. Big Sam is back.
You can read more from Josh on his blog The Gaffer Josh or follow him on Twitter.
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