Newcastle looked like a decent bet for relegation at the start of the season, but excellent January signings and replacing Steve Bruce with Eddie Howe has seen them pull well away to safety, now in the top half of the table.
Howe made three changes to the team that beat Norwich City, replacing Jamaal Lascelles, Sean Longstaff and Jacob Murphy with Fabian Schär, Jonjo Shelvey and Miguel Almiron. Newcastle lined up in a 4-3-3 shape.
Jürgen Klopp made the brave decision to rest several players despite Newcastle being one of the harder teams left still to play. Out went Trent Alexander-Arnold, Ibrahima Konaté, Fabinho, Thiago Alcântara and Mohamed Salah from the team that faced Villarreal in mid-week; in came Joe Gomez, Joël Matip, Naby Keïta, James Milner and Diogo Jota. Liverpool set up in their usual 4-3-3 formation.
Newcastle started the match pressing Liverpool quite high up the pitch. This enabled them to disrupt Liverpool’s build-up but also to win the ball in Liverpool’s half, ensuring they had a good start to the match.
The issue with this approach was that it would see Joe Willock and Bruno Guimarães pulled forward, either onto the deep midfielders or even all the way onto a centre-back to ensure Allan Saint-Maximin wasn’t left outnumbered. This made it harder for Liverpool’s deeper players to pass out, but it left space behind Willock and Guimarães to use, leaving Shelvey isolated.
After about ten minutes, Newcastle began to drop off rather than engaging Liverpool so high up the pitch, seeing the midfielders hold back and Joelinton and Almiron drop back to form a 4-5-1 shape. The benefit of this was obviously that they denied Liverpool that space behind the pressing line to cut through them, however the downside was that Liverpool’s deeper players now had time and space to play out from the back. The likes of Jordan Henderson and Milner aren’t great under pressure, but Newcastle were now allowing them the time to turn out and pick their passes, while Matip was also given space to stride forward on the ball.
Elements of this could be seen as Liverpool took the lead. Henderson had space in midfield to curve a pass around Willock into Keïta, who handed the ball off to Jota in space on the edge of the area – Willock had stepped up in a bid to cut out the pass, only for Henderson to bend it around him, then was slow to retreat back into position, ensuring Jota had space to work in. Keïta simply burst past Matt Targett as the left-back was slowed having to turn, received the ball back from Jota, then cut onto his left foot to finish.
Newcastle began to press again, but a more settled Liverpool found it easier to use their quality in possession and play around them, making use of those gaps Newcastle left.
Newcastle themselves would typically look to attack by narrowing their front three, often joined by a midfielder or full-back, and trying to quickly get the ball in behind, aiming to quickly catch out Liverpool’s backline. They rarely actually threatened though: Liverpool’s defensive line kept catching them offside, and them bunching their forwards together meant they could quickly combine, but it also meant Liverpool’s back four weren’t stretched, limiting space for Newcastle’s forwards so that any slightly off touch would see the ball reclaimed by a red shirt.
In the second half, Klopp began to introduce his first-teamers, bringing on the likes of Fabinho and Thiago to bring further control and see the game out.
It wasn’t a particularly convincing win from Liverpool, but it was a very confident, professional one: getting in, getting a goal, then getting to the end to claim their three points as the title race reaches its climax.
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