Norwich came into this match in decent form, having only lost one of their last five games, however it remained a long shot that they, a team fighting relegation, would get something against Liverpool, who have won all of their last seven.
Dean Smith made just one change to the team that lost to Manchester City last week, as Mathias Normann replaced Pierre Lees-Melou. Norwich lined up in a 4-3-3 shape.
Jürgen Klopp made mass changes to the side that beat Internazionale in mid-week. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson were rested, Ibrahima Konaté returned to the bench, the entire midfield was changed, while Diogo Jota and Roberto Firmino are both out with injuries, giving a sadly now rare opportunity to Joe Gomez, along with Kostas Tsimikas, Joël Matip, Jordan Henderson, Naby Keïta, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and new signing Luis Dias. Liverpool set up in their usual 4-3-3 formation.
Unsurprisingly, Norwich primarily looked to defend. They dropped back into a narrow 4-5-1 shape and forced the Reds to play through them, which isn’t exactly anything new for Liverpool at this point.
There were two main methods Liverpool used to get around this. Firstly, Norwich had solid defensive and midfield lines but the space in front of that wasn’t very well protected. Teemu Pukki hovered around the area, but his role was generally to move into the space behind the centre-backs as a potential counter-attacking threat rather than defending them moving forward himself, while Henderson was also typically left free in deep positions.
With Joe Gomez a natural centre-back rather than a full-back, Liverpool would sometimes form a makeshift back three, with Virgil van Dijk and Matip switching sides so that Van Dijk could be the covering man in the centre as Gomez and Matip pushed forward on the ball, but all the defenders were comfortable enough to push far into Norwich’s half.
As Pukki wasn’t typically picking up Henderson, it was usually left to Billy Gilmour to step out and meet him. Liverpool would then recycle the ball to a centre-back who would push forward on the ball and pass into a man waiting in the space left by Gilmour.
Liverpool’s second method of attack involved overloading the backline. With Gomez generally holding back, Mohamed Salah would provide the width on the right, whereas Tsimikas would push forward down the left, while Oxlade-Chamberlain would push forward to join Sadio Mané and Diaz through the centre. Joshua Sargent would often drop back into defence on the right to stop Norwich’s backline from being outnumbered, however the more notable strategy was on the opposite flank anyway. Oxlade-Chamberlain would position himself to occupy Brandon Williams, creating more space for Salah to receive the ball and dribble. This was made even more dangerous by Max Aarons consistently following Diaz incredibly narrow, leaving a massive gap at the back post to attack.
Norwich offered very little in attack. They would leave Pukki up-field as a counter-attacking threat but he was left feeding off scraps with little support, so he couldn’t realistically do much.
It was Norwich that took the lead though. Williams intercepted a weak pass into Salah and combined with Milot Rashica to send the ball forward to Sargent as Norwich broke. Liverpool got men back much quicker than Norwich could counter though, outnumbering them seven-to-four. Nevertheless, Rashica took a shot from distance, which deflected off of Matip, sending the ball in the opposite direction to where Alisson Becker was moving and into the net.
In the second half, Salah came inside into more central positions, putting him closer to goal but leaving him less space. Oxlade-Chamberlain would sometimes go down the outside but still made runs through the centre, while Gomez would push into midfield but tucked inside alongside Henderson to pick up the second balls.
After about a quarter of an hour, Klopp made attacking changes: off came Oxlade-Chamberlain and Keïta for Divock Origi and Thiago Alcântara as Liverpool changed to more of a 4-2-4.
It took Liverpool just two minutes to equalise after the changes as they overloaded the Norwich backline. Henderson had space in midfield to pick out a pass over the top and, despite consistently checking his shoulder to keep track of him so he must have surely noticed he wasn’t there, Sargent failed to follow Tsimikas making a run in behind. Mané made a run through the centre at the same time, occupying Aarons, so Tsimikas was left free to head the ball into the centre, where, with Aarons turning to face play, Mané had space to pull off an overhead kick.
They then took the lead barely a minute after kick-off. Norwich pushed forward on the counter, but the ball ran through to Alisson who pumped it in behind Norwich’s backline for Salah to chase. Angus Gunn rushed out to confront the Egyptian, but Salah cut back onto his right, causing the goalkeeper to slip, and rolled the ball into the net for his 150th goal in a Liverpool shirt.
Liverpool then secured their victory with ten minutes remaining. Kenny McLean and Normann were pulled forward, leaving space for Henderson to thread a pass through the midfield, while Ben Gibson was pulled out of the backline by Origi dropping off, leaving a gap for Diaz to attack. Henderson simply slid the ball straight through to Diaz making a run and the Colombian dinked it over Gunn to get his first goal for Liverpool.
With Manchester City losing to Tottenham Hotspur, the victory put Liverpool just six points off the league leaders with a game in hand, quietly sneaking back into a long dead title race.
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