Struggling near the bottom of the Championship, a trip to Anfield to potentially upset Liverpool in the FA Cup was a welcome distraction for Cardiff City.
Steve Morison made eight changes to the side that beat Barnsley in mid-week, with Mark McGuinness, Perry Ng and Will Vaulks the only players continuing on. Cardiff set up in a 3-5-2 shape.
Jürgen Klopp went with a weakened but still strong side. Caoimhin Kelleher, Ibrahima Konaté, Kostas Tsimikas, Naby Keïta and Takumi Minamino came in for Alisson Becker, Joël Matip, Andy Robertson, Fabinho and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain from the team that beat Crystal Palace before the winter break. Liverpool set up in their usual 4-3-3 formation.
Unsurprisingly given they aren’t even a good team in their own league, let alone the one above, Cardiff came to defend. They sat very deep in a 5-3-2 shape to protect their box, so deep that the forwards were often closer to their own box than the half-way line, while the back five helped to ensure they wouldn’t be left stretched.
Typically sides using a back three will have the backline tilt, with the wing-back on the ball side stepping forward as the one on the other side tucks in. Cardiff were even wary of doing this however, preferring to keep the wing-backs in the backline while the midfielders would come across to deal with the problem out wide. They didn’t do this all the time – Joel Bagan was particularly wary of allowing Trent Alexander-Arnold to have time and space out wide, so would push out if Will Vaulks wasn’t in a position to do so – but generally Cardiff preferred letting Liverpool have the ball out wide than risk giving them space to attack in behind them.
Cardiff basically ceded every area on the pitch except the most dangerous one – their box and the area just in front of it – where they stationed all their eleven men. As a result, it wasn’t exactly shocking that Liverpool struggled to create scoring opportunities, as there simply wasn’t the space available. They had space to swing in crosses, but they had limited effectiveness when Cardiff flooded their box with players to head them away.
Cardiff’s wing-backs refusing to leave the backline did have a knock-on effect in midfield though, as their midfielders would be forced across to cover. This in turn left space through the centre for Liverpool to exploit, with Roberto Firmino, Diogo Jota and Minamino all looking to drop off into pockets of space between the lines, combining with the midfielders to work the ball through.
While Liverpool did find some joy from this, it still left them having to get past Cardiff’s reinforced backline, plus Cardiff’s midfielders were willing to haul down any Liverpool players and concede a foul rather than letting them get away from them.
Although Cardiff were able to frustrate Liverpool, they offered basically nothing in attack, pumping the ball long for Liverpool to collect. They had a penalty shout turn down from a throw-in, with Konaté down the back of Mark Harris, but only because the forward stepped across the Frenchman, engineering contact, while less than a minute into the second half Kelleher came out to sweep up, yet missed the ball and instead caught Harris, only avoiding a red card because the ball ran through to Konaté rather than into Harris’ path. That they were relying on the referee punishing Liverpool mistakes rather than creating any actual chances themselves says it all though: with their strikers closer to their own box than the opposition’s, Cardiff offered next to nothing going forward.
Liverpool finally took the lead early in the second half from one of these crosses, Alexander-Arnold whipping in a cross for Jota to head home with a brilliant header. Cardiff may have been limiting Liverpool to low quality chances, but they were allowing them to have a lot of them, and against players of the quality of Alexander-Arnold and Jota, it was a risk. It was a war of attrition and Liverpool eventually wore Cardiff down.
With the lead, Klopp took the opportunity to reintroduce Harvey Elliott following his injury lay-off and hand a debut to new signing Luis Diaz, moving Roberto Firmino back into midfield. Introducing even more attackers when you have the lead seems like the exact opposite thing to what you should do to manage a game, but given Cardiff still weren’t offering anything going forward and Liverpool’s players were comfortable keeping the ball, it was in reality a safe enough move.
Liverpool doubled their lead mid-way through the half. An attack broke down and Ng attempted to shepherd the ball through to Dillon Phillips, however there wasn’t enough pace on the ball and so Diaz and Jota took the opportunity to press. They cornered Ng at the byline, with Diaz robbing him and cutting the ball back to Jota. The Portuguese got the ball caught in his feet, but it ran through to Minamino to fire into the net.
Klopp then made defensive changes, bringing on James Milner and Robertson to see out the game, while Morison continued to make like-for-like changes, doing nothing to actually change Cardiff’s failing set-up.
Elliot got a returning goal when Robertson crossed from the left and McGuinness slipped, leaving the teenager with space to take a touch and finish.
Cardiff had begun to push more men forward in attempts to overload Liverpool’s backline and they did manage a consolation goal, catching Liverpool on the counter. Firmino found himself surrounded in midfield and underhit a backwards pass to Milner, with Rubin Colwill intercepting it and poking the ball to Isaak Davies to run onto. Breaking three-versus-two at Liverpool’s centre-backs, Davies simply engaged Konaté then squared the ball to Colwill in space to finish.
That was all though, as Liverpool advanced to the next round.
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