Having endured a poor start to the season, there were few Liverpool supporters eagerly anticipating their clash with Manchester City.
The nerves weren’t exactly helped when Ibrahima Konaté was ruled out through injury the day before the match. Jürgen Klopp made five changes to the side that demolished Rangers, with James Milner coming in at right-back as Joe Gomez moved inside to fill in for Konaté, Andy Robertson fit again to take over from Kostas Tsimikas at left-back, Thiago Alcântara and Diogo Jota replacing Jordan Henderson and Fabio Carvalho in midfield, and Mohamed Salah leading the line through the centre after scoring the Champions League’s quickest hat-trick from there in mid-week, relegating Darwin Nuñez to the bench. Liverpool set up in a 4-2-3-1 formation.
After resting players for the mid-week draw with Copenhagen, Pep Guardiola also made five changes. Out went Aymeric Laporte, Sergio Gomez, Riyad Mahrez, Jack Grealish and Julian Alvarez; in came Ruben Dias, Nathan Aké, Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden and Erling Haaland. City lined up in a 3-4-2-1 shape.
Liverpool would press in certain situations but for the most part they dropped off into a mid-block 4-4-2, which worked well for them in several different ways defensively.
Firstly it helped to cover up certain defensive frailties. The inclusion of Milner at right-back was a worry prior to the game. As far back as 2018, Milner was finding it hard to cope in a high defensive line because he simply couldn’t move fast enough to keep up with attackers running in behind him, and this season, prior to this game, his legs appeared to be going to the extent that he was finding it difficult to play football at all, yet here, in what should have been the toughest game of the season so far, he faced little trouble. Those previous performances were in Liverpool’s 4-3-3 though, where the positions he was playing, central midfield and full-back, were the most physically demanding in the system.
Switching to a 4-4-2 shape has seen Liverpool remove a forward to add an extra body to the midfield, adding greater defensive width to cover the pitch. With the Liverpool wingers getting back to defend and double up on the opposition in a way they weren’t previously, and two defensive midfielders to shift across and help out, there was less need for Liverpool’s full-backs to step out of the backline than there was previously. There was never any question over whether Milner had the intelligence to play the role, but he no longer appeared to have the legs to do so, however the change in shape stripped back the physical demands to something he could cope with, especially with a deeper defensive line reducing the threat of runs in behind him. Unable to isolate Milner, time and again Foden would pick up the ball and end up passing backwards rather than trying to take him on. Although there weren’t the same question marks over his athleticism, Robertson also benefited from this cover on the opposite flank.
With the full-backs no longer getting dragged far away from the rest of their backline and instead able to hold their positions, City found it much harder to stretch Liverpool’s defence. This is a significant change to earlier games this season, where opponents were dragging Trent Alexander-Arnold away from the backline then playing it in behind him, forcing Joël Matip to come across and cover, leaving space in the centre for the opposition to exploit.
Liverpool’s mid-block also made it difficult for City to play through them. City had set up with a box shape in midfield, with Bernardo Silva and Rodri at its base and Ilkay Gündogan and Kevin De Bruyne at its tip, but Liverpool packed this area even tighter: Salah would sometimes step up to press but Roberto Firmino made sure to hold back and block the passes into midfield, with the Egyptian often holding back alongside him, while Harvey Elliott and Jota would take up narrow positions, cutting off passes into Gündogan and De Bruyne behind them, but also pushing forward to pressure Manuel Akanji and Aké when the opportunity arose, as Thiago and Fabinho protected the centre. Rodri was frequently coming back very close to the defenders to pick up the ball, but this didn’t take any of the Liverpool players out of the game, just holding onto the ball in front of them rather than penetrating their lines. This made it hard for City to pass into midfield and, even if they did manage it, Silva and Rodri would usually get surrounded by several players on all sides when they got it.
Winning the ball back in midfield like this then allowed Liverpool to counter directly at City’s exposed backline, although they usually wasted these opportunities with a poor touch or decision. These counters from midfield were a common feature of Liverpool’s play after they adopted the mid-block in 2018-19, giving the opposition the time and space on the ball to play out then breaking into the space in behind when they won it back, but not one that’s been seen recently. With the introduction of VAR, Liverpool began using a high line even when they weren’t pressing, encouraging their opponents to kick long over them rather than passing into midfield, meaning Liverpool were winning the ball back deep in their own half rather than in midfield.
Unable to play through the centre, City were often hitting the ball long to their wide men, who would push high up the pitch, but Liverpool found it easy to defend against these percentage balls.
Whereas Liverpool were finding it easy to defend against City, the visitors weren’t having the same success. City started the game trying to press Liverpool high up the pitch, inverting their frontline so that Haaland stayed in midfield next to Thiago and Fabinho, while De Bruyne and Gündogan pushed up onto Virgil van Dijk and Gomez.
This didn’t do much to stop Liverpool playing out though. De Bruyne and Gündogan would block off the straight passes from the centre-backs to the midfielders behind them, but this did nothing to stop the diagonal passes from a centre-back to the opposite midfielder. With Haaland left alone against two, he couldn’t really do much to stop them. Rodri started to move up to join him, but this would leave Silva alone in front of the defence, so eventually De Bruyne and Gündogan simply dropped back in line with Haaland. This stopped Liverpool passing into midfield, but it gave the centre-backs free rein to split wide and pick out passes themselves.
Even if they could force Liverpool long, this wasn’t necessarily a good thing for City. Akanji and Aké would follow Liverpool’s attackers high up the pitch if they dropped deep, leaving their teammates exposed, and the backline struggled to deal with aerial balls throughout, getting caught under the ball or failing to read the play. Salah was particularly clever in these instances, positioning himself behind the centre-backs as the ball dropped rather than trying to win the header, blocking the City defenders from being able to move backwards so they would get caught under the ball and it would run through to him.
By the end of the first half, Gündogan and Silva had swapped places, each taking up their more natural positions, but this did nothing to actually address City’s issues.
Liverpool finally took the lead with fifteen minutes to go. A City free-kick was easily claimed by Alisson Becker, and he pumped it long to Salah. As he had throughout the match, the Egyptian didn’t challenge for the ball but instead turned his back, so when João Cancelo missed the ball, Salah span and was through on goal, finishing past Ederson Moraes to put Liverpool ahead.
On 90 minutes, Klopp brought on Alexander-Arnold, switching to a back five with Milner tucking inside at centre-back, but Liverpool always looked closer to adding another than City did to equalising.
Liverpool’s victory was a strategic one, their new 4-4-2 shape providing cover for their declining legs where their old 4-3-3 exposed them, but it was also a mental one. Too often this season Liverpool’s players have looked unfocussed and unfussed, barely bothering to track back or do their duties when their teammates need them; here, Liverpool’s players not only showed their quality, but put in a hard shift to emerge victorious. If they are going to build off of this win, this mentality needs to become the expected standard again.
City on the other hand once again folded as soon as they came up against a team that put up any real resistance.
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