For the second Premier League match in a row, Elland Road would host a Liverpudlian team, although those using Paypal on UK betting sites would be just as likely to come away with nothing betting on the home side again.
Marcelo Bielsa reverted back to a 4-1-4-1 after switching to a 3-3-3-1 against Burnley, with Junior Firpo replacing Pascal Struijk in defence.
After concerns over whether Alisson Becker and Fabinho would be suspended, Jürgen Klopp was able to pick them, although the injured Roberto Firmino missed out, giving Diogo Jota a chance, with Thiago Alcântara coming in for Jordan Henderson the only other change from the draw with Chelsea before the international break. They set up in their usual 4-3-3 formation.
Liverpool’s gameplan for facing Leeds is well-established at this point. Leeds use an extremely man-orientated marking system to defend. This differs from a true man-marking system in that Leeds’ players won’t follow their man all over the pitch and they are willing to switch duties if they are dragged too far from their nominal position, however Leeds stretch this to its limits, regularly crossing over or getting pulled forward or backwards.
Liverpool set out to manipulate this system to their advantage by switching positions fluidly, dragging Leeds players into unusual positions and having their teammates make use of the space created by dragging an opponent away. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson would bomb forward down the wing, Diogo Jota would drop off into midfield but also drift out to the left, switching positions with Sadio Mané, while Mohamed Salah would also cut inside, with Harvey Elliott instead going down the outside on the right. Even Fabinho was willing to push forward and create confusion in the final third.
Liverpool’s opening goal originated with a centre-back though. Striker Patrick Bamford is the one Leeds outfielder tasked with marking zonally, asked to mark both opposition centre-backs, closing down one while blocking the pass into the other. Liverpool had no problem playing around him though, simply by adding a third man: one centre-back could easily find the other just by either playing backwards to Alisson, or forward into midfield to Thiago or Fabinho, and have them bounce a pass into the other centre-back.
For the opening goal, Bamford was pulled across towards Virgil van Dijk, only for Thiago to pass into Joël Matip instead. This left Matip in space to stride forward deep into the Leeds half and pass into Salah. The Egyptian took a touch, drawing Firpo towards him, then returned the ball to Matip and made a run into the box. Firpo was caught out as Salah offloaded the ball, tripping over his feet as he changed direction, so Jack Harrison was forced inside to track Salah’s run into the box. With Harrison dragged away, Alexander-Arnold was left in acres of space out wide, so Matip rolled the ball out to him to drill across the face of goal with enough speed so all that Salah had to do to turn it home was open up his foot.
Leeds’ attack mainly consisted of pushing Rodrigo forward to join the forwards, going four-versus-four with Liverpool’s backline. Sometimes this involved timing a run off the back of a midfielder to pick up the ball between the lines and run at Liverpool’s defenders but often it was simply hitting a direct pass forward.
Liverpool doubled their lead early in the second half though, with Van Dijk heading a corner towards goal and Fabinho scrambling home the loose ball. It wasn’t the first time Cooper failed to get anywhere near Van Dijk at a corner.
Ten minutes later, substitute Struijk was sent off for a tackle from behind on Elliott. Leeds switched to a 4-2-3, with Luke Ayling tucking into the centre and Stuart Dallas dropping back to full-back, while Bielsa brought on Daniel James for Harrison soon after. Jordan Henderson replaced the injured Elliott for Liverpool.
Mané had already taken nine shots before finally scoring on his tenth. Into injury time, Liverpool simply overloaded Leeds’ backline, with Henderson making a run out to the right, crossing for Thiago joining the attack on the other flank, who passed inside for Mané to finally get his goal.
Leeds were simply unable to deal with Liverpool’s movement.
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