With the 2022 World Cup throwing the schedule out of whack, two teams already having injury troubles had to wrestle with their first mid-week fixture of the season, just days after their last game.
Despite the lack of recovery time, Jürgen Klopp stuck with the exact same starting eleven that demolished Bournemouth. Liverpool set up in their usual 4-3-3 formation.
Eddie Howe made four changes to the side that drew with Wolverhampton Wanderers. An injury to Allan Saint-Maximin saw Ryan Fraser take his place, while new signing Alexander Isak got his debut in attack, taking the spot of Chris Wood. In defence Jamaal Lascelles and Matt Targett replaced Fabian Schär and Sven Botman, with Dan Burn moving inside from left-back. Newcastle lined up in a 4-3-3 shape.
The matching shapes didn’t line up well for Newcastle. Most 4-3-3s are actually 4-1-2-3s, with one of the midfielders behind the other two, yet Newcastle’s involved three central midfielders all on the same line. Sean Longstaff would sometimes push forward to press Fabinho but often he would just stay back, allowing Fabinho time on the ball to pick out passes. As Newcastle were playing without a proper holding midfielder, they left plenty of space in between the lines for Harvey Elliott and Roberto Firmino in particular to make use of, while also giving Fabinho the space to feed the ball into them.
Nevertheless, Liverpool found it difficult to break down Newcastle, as the Magpies would generally keep Kieran Trippier and Targett back in defence rather than pushing them forward. This ensured they kept their back four in tact to provide defensive cover, rather than giving Liverpool space to quickly break into.
Part of the reason Newcastle’s full-backs weren’t venturing forward was likely due to them not having the time to do so though. Most of the time Newcastle went direct, hitting long balls straight to the striker. If the wingers narrowed, Fraser in particular moving inside, then Isak could get some support, but he was mainly working off of crumbs and Liverpool would easily reclaim the ball.
And yet it was Newcastle that took the lead. Trent Alexander-Arnold gave the ball away cheaply in midfield, allowing Newcastle to counter. Virgil van Dijk was drawn wide to deal with Miguel Almiron and then never returned to his position, stepping up but not across, leaving Isak free to receive Longstaff’s slipped pass through. The young Swede let the ball run across him and finished over Alisson Becker.
Having taken the lead, Newcastle immediately went about doing everything they could to maintain it. They pulled their midfielders back deep to defend, frequently having pretty much the entirety of their team defending their own box.
They also began time-wasting, taking every opportunity to hold onto the ball or lay down in a bid to run down the clock and break up any rhythm Liverpool could build.
What they still didn’t do was defend that area between the lines though, and Liverpool took advantage a quarter of an hour into the second half to equalise. Liverpool cut straight through Newcastle, with Alisson rolling the ball out to Fabinho, the Brazilian immediately turning and finding Elliott between the lines, who turned and found Mohamed Salah. Newcastle got men back, leaving Salah outnumbered, but they left a gap in midfield: Longstaff followed Elliott while Joelinton looked to double up on Salah with Burn, leaving space in between them for Firmino to attack the box. Salah slipped the ball in between Burn and Joelinton for Firmino to run onto and finish.
Klopp made a triple substitution with 20 minutes left. Kostas Tsimikas and James Milner replaced Andy Robertson and Alexander-Arnold at full-back, while Fabio Carvalho replaced Jordan Henderson, so that Liverpool had two young attacking midfielders playing at central midfield.
Despite losing their lead, Newcastle continued with the same strategy, making only like-for-like changes. It very nearly worked for them, but ultimately backfired. Time-wasting is an unpopular but actually quite effective strategy thanks to refereeing incompetence. The threat of extra time added on is meaningless when no referees actually follow through with the threat, yet in this instance Andre Marriner did, continuing on past the 95th minute due to Nick Pope feigning injury, giving Carvalho the time to scramble home a winning goal from a corner.
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