Chelsea winning against Leicester City on Tuesday gave Liverpool the opportunity to leapfrog the Foxes into fourth place so long as they could continue winning.
Jürgen Klopp made one change to the side that beat West Brom on Sunday, with Curtis Jones replaced by Georginio Wijnaldum in their usual 4-3-3 formation.
Sean Dyche made two changes to the team that lost to Leeds United, with Will Norris and Johann Gudmundsson coming in for Bailey Peacock-Farrell and Matej Vydra in a 4-4-1-1 shape.
Burnley started the game at a high pace, pressing Liverpool high up the pitch which made it harder for Liverpool to play out.
This left space behind them though, so Liverpool were hitting passes in behind for Mohamed Salah to chase, with the Egyptian getting into good spots several times.
Whenever Liverpool were able to play around Burnley, the Clarets would quickly drop off into two narrow banks of four as expected, forcing Liverpool to break them down.
In order to exploit Burnley’s narrowness, Liverpool played the ball out to the wide areas, with Andy Robertson in particular getting high up in attack down the left. Gudmundsson would follow him deep into his half, forming a makeshift back five, but break quickly and the Icelander wouldn’t be able to catch up. When Gudmundsson dropped into defence like this Robertson would often drop back and tuck inside rather than wasting himself in attack when he wasn’t stretching the defence, putting himself in a position to pick up second balls.
Liverpool were frequently in positions to exploit Burnley’s narrowness but kept making a mess of their attempts at switching the play, putting an abrupt end to their attacks.
Burnley’s attacks were basically just long balls forward, which, except for when they allowed the ball to bounce through to Chris Wood running in behind them, Liverpool’s defenders dealt with easily. Charlie Taylor would often push forward down the left while Matthew Lowton remained back with the centre-backs, but seeing as Burnley were just pumping balls into the strikers this had little effect on the game.
Just before half-time Liverpool finally got their breakthrough. Attacking down the left, Robertson sped ahead of Gudmundsson and pulled back the ball first-time for Roberto Firmino to run onto and finish.
They then doubled their lead shortly after half-time. Burnley headed away a corner but Liverpool collected the loose ball and sent it straight back to Robertson, who poked it behind for Sadio Mané. The Senegalese shaped to cut inside then hit the byline and crossed to Nathaniel Phillips to power a header at goal.
Burnley had no response and substitute Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain added a third minutes from time. He picked up the ball in the box, twisted away from Taylor and fired a shot inside the near post.
It wasn’t a particularly interesting match, with Burnley looking a lot like a team that had now failed to win their tenth home game in a row. Liverpool were creating chances even early on and as soon as they turned on their quality they got their goal, meaning they just need a win against Crystal Palace on the final day to rescue Champions League qualification from this mess of a season.
If you enjoy these posts, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a one-off donation. For just $2.99, you can get access to premium videos and training sessions.
No responses yet