In complete freefall domestically, the much more difficult task of winning the Champions League actually looks a more realistic chance for Liverpool of qualifying for next season’s competition.
Jürgen Klopp appeared to recognise this too, resting players in the weekend’s loss to Fulham. Trent Alexander-Arnold, Ozan Kabak, Thiago Alcântara, Sadio Mané and Fabinho all returned, as Liverpool continued with their usual 4-3-3 formation.
Having made a mess of the first leg, the odds weren’t in RB Leipzig’s favour. Julian Nagelsmann made two changes to the team that beat Freiburg on Saturday, replacing Amadou Haidara and Alexander Sorloth with Marcel Sabitzer and Emil Forsberg in a 3-5-2 shape.
Looking to protect their lead, Liverpool set up in a more defensive way than usual. Typically they will keep their front three in attack and narrow, whereas here Mohamed Salah and Mané would drop back in line with the midfielders. This gave Liverpool greater defensive width in midfield.
They would still frequently push up to press though, with Mané and Salah pressing Nordi Mukiele and Lukas Klosterman while curving their runs to block the passes out to the wing-backs.
Leipzig’s gameplan appeared to be based around pushing men forward to outnumber Liverpool’s backline. Sabitzer would drop back in midfield alongside Kevin Kampl, while Dani Olmo would push forward into attack and both wing-backs would position themselves very high – Christopher Nkunku in particular was more like a winger. Yussuf Poulsen and Emil Forsberg would both come short to collect the ball between the lines, receiving passes from the centre-backs then laying them off to get Leipzig attacking five-versus-four against Liverpool’s backline.
Leipzig would also do this more bluntly, sending long balls over the top and hoping that, outnumbering Liverpool, they would win the second ball, although this was less successful.
Nkunku was probably kept so high in an attempt to isolate Alexander-Arnold. Leipzig would switch the ball over to him high on the left flank, however he usually wasted these opportunities – too slow to dribble past the full-back and never picking out a good cross or pass. He was moved inside in the second half, with Justin Kluivert replacing him on the wing.
Pushing so many men high up the pitch meant Leipzig were very susceptible to counter-attacks. Liverpool would reclaim the ball then get their frontmen running three-against-three at Leipzig’s backline.
The high positioning of Leipzig’s wing-backs was particularly noticeable on the left, where Nkunku rarely tracked back, allowing Alexander-Arnold to overload Leipzig’s backline several times on the overlap.
It was on the counter that Liverpool finally opened the scoring, with Salah, Mané and Diogo Jota combining to set up the Egyptian to finish.
Klopp had already been preparing to substitute Jota and Thiago when Liverpool scored, bringing on Naby Keïta and Divock Origi in their place. The two combined to set up Mané straight away, with Keïta slipping a pass in behind Dayot Upamecano for Origi, who crossed first-time – the Senegalese coolly finishing with the outside of his boot as Tyler Adams simply gave up tracking him.
Nagelsmann was gracious in defeat, saying “I think we deserved to be knocked out”, but it’s hard to argue with him. In the midst of one of Liverpool’s worst runs of form in decades, Leipzig gave them a nice easy time in the first leg and their response here – desperately needing goals – didn’t really seem to have any idea beyond pushing lots of men forward.
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