Going into the last day of the Premier League season, for the first time in its history every single position could potentially change.
After fielding a weakened team for the victory over Southampton, Jürgen Klopp returned to a full-strength line-up. Although Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Fabinho and Joe Gomez were all missing through injury, Andy Robertson, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Thiago Alcântara, Naby Keïta, Sadio Mané and Luis Diaz all returned to the starting eleven. Liverpool set up in their usual 4-3-3 formation.
Bruno Lage made two changes to the team that drew with Norwich, with José Sa and Leander Dendoncker replacing John Ruddy and Hwang Hee-Chan. Wolverhampton Wanderers went from a 3-4-3 to a 3-5-2 shape.
Needing a win, Liverpool started the game in the worst possible manner, giving away an easy goal to Wolves just two minutes into the match. Ibrahima Konaté missed his header at a goal kick, allowing the ball to run through to Raul Jiménez, who squared it to Pedro Neto to finish at the back post.
After taking the lead, Wolves immediately changed to a 3-4-3 shape defensively, pulling Neto back to the left of the midfield, giving them more width to deal with Liverpool’s full-backs.
Wolves caused quite a few early problems for Liverpool in part due to their shape. Liverpool wanted to press high, yet Mané having to step up onto Conor Coady would leave Ruben Neves free in midfield, with the wide centre-backs easily able to find a passing angle into him. Typically (although they are more flexible than they used to be) Liverpool’s wingers will press the centre-backs while curving their runs to block the passes out to the wing-backs, however here they remained quite narrow, instead aiming to block the passes into midfield. This limited that space for Neves but it meant Rayan Aït-Nouri and Jonny Castro were free on the flanks to receive the ball, requiring either Liverpool’s midfielders to move wide, leaving space inside for Wolves’ midfielders, or Liverpool’s full-backs to step up, leaving space in defence for Wolves’ attackers to exploit.
Wolves also simply looked the take advantage of Liverpool’s high line with direct balls in behind. The forwards would split wide to stretch and isolate the Liverpool defenders then would simply attack the space behind them. Neto was of course the main threat, but he went off injured after just 20 minutes, replaced by Hwang who was nowhere near as useful.
Liverpool’s pressure soon began to mount however. Having taken the lead, Wolves dropped off, allowing Liverpool onto them, and Liverpool pushed men forward into attack, with the centre-backs given the time and space to pick out passes into them.
Jota and sometimes Diaz tucked inside to join Mané dropping off between the lines, while Keïta and to a lesser extent Thiago would also push forward. To combat these players, Wolves’ centre-backs would step out to meet them but this left a gap in the backline for Liverpool’s other attackers to exploit.
This is how Liverpool equalised. Konaté pushed forward on the ball and picked out a pass into Thiago between the lines, causing Willy Boly to step out to meet him, but Thiago simply flicked the ball around the Ivorian into the gap he had left for Mané to run onto and finish.
Before half-time news filtered through that Aston Villa had taken the lead against Manchester City, meaning Liverpool could win the league if they could get another goal. Minutes later though, Thiago was forced off through injury, to be replaced at half-time by James Milner.
Thiago’s injury couldn’t have come at a worse time: Liverpool needed to break down a deep 5-4-1 and were now left with Henderson and Milner – neither man ideal for picking out those line-breaking passes – as their deep midfielders. Liverpool often went wide, but Wolves covered the width of the pitch well. Andy Robertson in particular was having a pretty horrible game on the left, however Trent Alexander-Arnold didn’t have much to aim at either, with Wolves’ back five blocking up the space in the box.
Klopp made attacking changes, bringing on Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino for Jota and Keïta, changing to a 4-2-3-1, but the problem was in creating the chances for the frontmen rather than the frontmen themselves.
Liverpool finally took the lead at a corner. Joël Matip rose above Toti Gomes to head at goal, which was blocked on the line by Jiménez, only for Salah to scramble the loose ball across the line. It was too late though: City had already come back from two goals down against Villa, meaning the result at Anfield was meaningless unless Villa could manage a third.
The Reds added another minutes later when Robertson and Mané doubled up on Jonny out wide, getting Robertson in behind and dragging Boly out to meet him. Firmino ran into the space behind Boly then returned the ball to the Scot to finish.
Just like in 2019, Liverpool chased City down to the final day, but finished just one point behind the champions. If 2019 is anything to go by though, it’s a positive omen for Liverpool in the Champions League final.
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