With their Boxing day clash with Leeds postponed, Liverpool had a six day break before replaying Leicester, who they defeated in the League Cup. Liverpool had managed a comeback with a weakened team in the cup, defeating Leicester on penalties, so on paper this should have been a much easier challenge for the Reds.
Leicester came into this match in even worse shape than they had for the League Cup tie, to face a stronger opponent. They lost to Manchester City just two days ago whereas Liverpool were able to rest, while Ricardo Pereira, Ryan Bertrand, Patson Daka and Caglar Söyüncü all succumbed to injury, adding to Leicester’s already extensive injury woes. Brendan Rodgers switched back to the 4-3-1-2 shape he used against Liverpool in the cup after changing to a 4-4-1-1 against City, seeing Marc Albrighton, Jannik Vestergaard, Ayoze Pérez, Youri Tielemans and Ademola Lookman all drop to the bench, replaced by Timothy Castagne, Wilfred Ndidi, Hamza Choudhury, Boubakary Soumaré and Jamie Vardy.
Although it was a six day rest for Liverpool, it was in reality a much longer rest for the majority of their players. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Jordan Henderson and Kostas Tsimikas were the only players to continue on from the Leicester game, while Virgil van Dijk and Fabinho, along with Curtis Jones on the bench, were finally back in action for the first time since the victory over Aston Villa, missing three matches after positive Covid tests. Liverpool set up in their usual 4-3-3 formation.
As Leicester lined up in the same way as they had in their last meeting, Liverpool used broadly the same attacking strategy. Leicester flooded the centre, so Liverpool passed the ball out to the full-backs where there was space. In that match, Conor Bradley had at one point switched play over to Tsimikas, in space on the opposite flank thanks to Leicester shifting across to meet Liverpool on the ball side. With Trent Alexander-Arnold returning to the starting eleven, this was a constant in this match – arguably Liverpool’s main attacking strategy. Liverpool would play right to Alexander-Arnold in space, Leicester would shift across, and Alexander-Arnold would use his incredible passing range to switch the play out to Tsimikas in space down the left.
From there Liverpool would play four-against-four with Leicester’s backline. Castagne would often be cut off from the rest of his backline against Tsimikas, as Sadio Mané, Diogo Jota and Mohamed Salah each occupied one of the other defenders. Liverpool never quite managed to create clear-cut chances from this though, as Tsimikas still had to pick out a good cross into the box to actually test the defenders. Choudhury also worked hard to get back and support his full-back, either moving out to meet Tsimikas himself or ensuring players couldn’t make untracked runs in behind Castagne.
Liverpool’s best chance of the first half came when they won a penalty. With several Leicester players moving towards Henderson, Salah was left with space in the box when the ball was knocked down to him. Ndidi panicked and stretched out a leg to recover but got nowhere near the ball, tripping the Egyptian. Although it wasn’t the best of penalties by Salah, Kasper Schmeichel proved to be far more competent at saving them than he had during last week’s shoot-out, ditching the dancing on the goal-line that had left him off-balance and made it easy for Liverpool’s players to slot the ball in the other direction.
Although Liverpool hadn’t created too many real chances, they had maintained near complete control over the first half. Whenever Leicester got the ball, they looked to quickly feed their front three, however Liverpool would immediately cut out these counters and get back on the attack again.
Whatever was said to the Liverpool players at half-time was clearly the wrong thing though. They were truly horrendous in the second half, lazily walking around and giving the ball away cheaply with sloppy passes.
They were still pushing forward though, adapting from the first half but keeping that same four-versus-four in attack. Rather than pushing Tsimikas into attack, Henderson was now making runs to join the forwards as he had in the League Cup game.
In the 56th minute Rodgers made a double substitution, removing Kelechi Iheanacho and Choudhury for Lookman and Tielemans. This saw James Maddison move right, with Lookman on the left, changing to a 4-5-1 that offered greater defensive width in midfield. This made it harder for Liverpool to use their full-backs to stretch play.
Just minutes later, Lookman opened the scoring. Leicester played down the left, drawing Alexander-Arnold out to meet Lookman, while Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall made a run from midfield into the space behind the full-back. Lookman managed to hold off Alexander-Arnold, turn and play the ball into Dewsbury-Hall, but Joël Matip came across to stop him advancing. Lookman sprinted through the middle though, with neither Alexander-Arnold nor Henderson mustering more than a jog to stop him as he burst down Matip’s blind side. Van Dijk did a good job of covering, putting himself between the ball and goal to slow down Lookman, however the substitute’s slipped shot squeaked in at the near post to give the home side the lead.
Although the substitutions gave Leicester greater defensive width in midfield, it removed two players from the attacking band, making it easier for Liverpool to play out. This gave Liverpool’s deep midfielders greater time and space to pick out passes into the player between the lines. The introduction of Naby Keïta was an improvement on Oxlade-Chamberlain in this respect, although James Milner coming on for Fabinho was a downgrade, albeit understandable given the Brazilian was a yellow card away from missing the match against Chelsea.
Matip also gained the freedom to push forward on the ball into Leicester’s half. He had done this a few times in the first half as Iheanacho was caught between picking up Fabinho or the Cameroonian, however, now needing a goal, Matip was more keen to take advantage.
Rodgers used his final substitution to protect his lead, switching to a 5-4-1 by bringing on Albrighton for Maddison. Jürgen Klopp used his to search for an equaliser, swapping out midfielder Henderson for attacker Roberto Firmino. The equaliser never came.
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