Having won just one of their last ten matches, the odds of Burnley repeating their win over Liverpool at Anfield from seven months ago weren’t in their favour.
Sean Dyche set up his men in a 4-4-2 formation, making two changes to the team that lost to Brighton. Ashley Westwood and Jay Rodriguez were replaced by Josh Brownhill and Ashley Barnes.
Jürgen Klopp also made two changes, handing Harvey Elliott his full Premier League debut and bringing captain Jordan Henderson back into the midfield as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and James Milner were dropped from the squad altogether after the victory over Norwich – Oxlade-Chamberlain attending the birth of his child and Milner picking up a knock. They continued with their usual 4-3-3 shape.
Burnley looked to press Liverpool high up the pitch. Chris Wood and Barnes would initially stay near Henderson to block that first pass out of defence, however when the opportunity arose they would push up to pressure Joël Matip and Virgil van Dijk, with Brownhill moving up behind them to ensure Henderson wasn’t left free.
Liverpool found it easy to work around this pressure though. Naby Keïta would often drop in next to Henderson, providing a second option for that first pass out of defence, while Diogo Jota was happy to drop off into the midfield, making use of the space Brownhill was vacating to step up and get tight to Henderson.
Liverpool were also well set-up out wide. With Dwight McNeil moving forward to press Trent Alexander-Arnold and Charlie Taylor occupied by Mohamed Salah, Elliott had space to receive and use the ball by pulling out wide close to the touchline on the right.
Keïta would also do this on the left, allowing Liverpool to create three-versus-two overloads on the flanks. This is how Liverpool got their opening goal. Keïta pulling out wide meant he and Sadio Mané were occupying Johann Gudmundsson and Matthew Lowton, so, when Keïta passed the ball back to Kostas Tsimikas, the Greek had the time and space to take a touch and whip in a cross onto Jota’s head.
Burnley were trying to make life difficult for Liverpool only to find themselves outnumbered both in the centre and on each flank.
They weren’t helping themselves with their method of attacking either. Every time they got the ball they would pump it long for the strikers to chase, handing it straight back to Liverpool. In the second half, they started to hit it to the strikers rather than in behind, allowing them to have more of a running battle with Liverpool’s centre-backs, but it still didn’t actually help them to create chances.
Liverpool continued to exert pressure as they searched for a second goal to secure their win before finally getting it in the 69th minute. Elliott again pulled wide and had the space to control a cross-field pass from Van Dijk, before cutting inside and passing to Alexander-Arnold. James Tarkowski was forced out to confront Alexander-Arnold, who knocked the ball around him with a first-time pass, feeding the player Tarkowski had left to close him down: Mané.
It was a very slick performance from Liverpool, passing around the away side with ease, and Burnley were perhaps fortunate the score wasn’t much higher – they never looked in the game and what little success they did have was typically the result of incompetent refereeing.
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