A fresh start to a season with two things not seen for a while: Liverpool as defending champions and Leeds United in the Premier League.
Jurgen Klopp set up his side in their usual 4-3-3 formation, and Marcelo Bielsa matched him.
Although both sides also engaged in pressing, their defensive styles didn’t match up. Leeds used a much more man-orientated system: in midfield, Pablo Hernandez would pick up Jordan Henderson, Mateusz Klich would pick up Naby Keita and Kalvin Phillips would pick up Georginio Wijnaldum, shifting around depending on where their opponents were. Some would be drawn high up the pitch to stop Liverpool playing out, while others would be dropping into the backline following their man.
This was the same in defence: one of the centre-backs, most often Robin Koch, would step out of defence to follow Roberto Firmino dropping off, Stuart Dallas would often position himself wider to stay close to Mohamed Salah, pushing up when the Egyptian would come short for the ball, while Luke Ayling was tucking into the middle, even crossing over with a centre-back, to follow Sadio Mane inside.
When pressing high they would adopt a slightly more zonal system. Patrick Bamford stayed close to Virgil van Dijk while Jack Harrison took up a split position on the left, close to Joe Gomez but also trying to block the pass out to Trent Alexander-Arnold. With the midfielders getting tight to Henderson and Wijnaldum behind them, there were few options for Liverpool through the centre. On the right, Costa would position himself deeper, giving the impression that Andy Robertson was free, then rushing out to close him down.
Although Leeds’ pressure made it more difficult for Liverpool to play out, pushing Robertson high up down the flank and the free movement of Mane manipulated the away side’s shape enough so Liverpool could usually break forward with quick passes and movement.
For Liverpool, Roberto Firmino would focus on blocking the pass out to Phillips, leaving Mane and Salah to push up and press the centre-backs. While Salah and Mane looked to also block the passes wide to the full-backs, pushing up to press the centre-backs left them too far away to really cover them effectively. This left Keita and Wijnaldum in the uncomfortable position of having to decide whether to rush out to the full-backs or stay and cover Klich and Hernandez who would push high up in midfield.
With Henderson sometimes also dragged forward to cover Phillips whenever Firmino left him to press a defender, Leeds had five players high up the pitch against Liverpool’s back four. They were essentially baiting Liverpool into pressing then hitting long balls into attack where they outnumbered the Reds – both Leeds’ second and third goals came from them pushing five players up into attack.
It was through set pieces that Liverpool kept taking the lead. First a penalty for handball, then a corner where bunching players together on the edge of the area allowed Van Dijk to evade the attentions of Koch and head home, then a free-kick where Van Dijk took up too much attention, three Leeds players following him and handing the ball to the waiting Salah to rifle home in space, and finally another penalty.
They were continuously giving these leads away though. Their defensive line was consistently awful in the first half, rarely stopping or following as a unit.
This lead to the first goal, where Alexander-Arnold dropped back but no one else did, allowing Harrison to flick it round him and finish. Gomez and Van Dijk made bursts to cover but it was too late; had they simply dropped off from the start with Alexander-Arnold, Gomez could have easily mopped up the ball when Harrison knocked it around the right-back.
The second came from a rare Van Dijk mistake, touching down a long ball in behind straight to Bamford to finish. The third an untracked run by Klich – a defensive mistake by Liverpool’s midfielders rather than their stretched backline.
Liverpool tightened up in the second half, bringing on Fabinho to shore up the midfield, and looked likely to pull away from Leeds with counters or stealing the ball on the edge of the box when Leeds tried to play out. They never quite managed to finish these chances though and so failed to secure a two goal lead.
It was a similar Liverpool performance to last season. They would rarely blow teams away but would nearly always find a way to edge out their opponents, typically through their pressing or a moment of individual quality by an attacker. While early on last year Liverpool looked like they were easing off in an attempt to conserve energy and see out games, from the winter break onwards they started to look off-the-pace, maybe even complacent.
With their poor defending in this season opener, Liverpool looked more like the latter than the former. This is understandable so early on in the season when the players likely aren’t full match sharp, but it is something to keep an eye on.
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