The time came to finally make those potential points of the game in hand a reality. Liverpool’s Boxing Day clash with Leeds was originally postponed after numerous cases of Covid-19 in Leeds’ squad.
Jürgen Klopp made five changes to the side that beat Norwich, swapping out all of their midfield and both full-backs as Trent Alexander-Arnold, Andy Robertson, Thiago Alcântara, Fabinho and Curtis Jones returned. Liverpool set up in their usual 4-3-3 formation.
Marcelo Bielsa made two changes to the team that lost to rivals Manchester United. Diego Llorente and Robin Koch were both ruled out injured, so Junior Firpo and Raphinha came into the starting eleven. Leeds lined up in a 4-1-4-1 shape.
At this point, Liverpool have already established their method of beating Leeds. The Yorkshire side use heavily man-orientated marking. Here Luke Ayling generally picked up Sadio Mané while Pascal Struijk was the spare man at the back, the full-backs took Liverpool’s wingers, the wingers took the full-backs, and Adam Forshaw, Mateusz Klich and Rodrigo took Curtis Jones, Thiago and Fabinho respectively. This allowed them to stick tight to their opposite number, leaving them no time to control the ball before a Leeds player was snapping at their ankles.
The big obvious problem with this set-up is it leaves the striker, in this case winger Dan James, alone against the two centre-backs. Jack Harrison, Raphinha or Rodrigo would sometimes shift across to help him but that wasn’t an ideal solution as it left Alexander-Arnold, Robertson or Fabinho free. James would try to position himself between the two to cut off the pass into the other, before pressing whichever was in possession, but with Alisson Becker acting as a way of bouncing the ball between them, this had little effect. This was a particularly bad idea against Liverpool, as Joël Matip loves to push forward on the ball whenever the opportunity arises, which was all the time with Leeds’ set-up. This meant Leeds players had to either let the Cameroonian go free or desert their own man to stop him, leaving one of Matip’s teammates open for a pass.
The second problem with Leeds’ set-up is that it can be easily manipulated: opposition players can position themselves, knowing Leeds’ players will follow them, to create spaces elsewhere and ensure they aren’t in positions to cover for their teammates. Leeds’ midfielders would all get pulled forward following Liverpool’s into deep positions and so Mané had space to drop off into between the lines. Ayling aggressively following him ensured the Senegalese didn’t get too much space to exploit, but that left a gap in defence for Liverpool’s other attackers to exploit.
Another issue with Leeds’ marking was on show as Liverpool took the lead. Leeds were on the attack, but Fabinho won the ball back in midfield, leaving five Leeds players in attack as Liverpool countered. A more zonal system would have players behind the ball to defend the counter, but in Leeds’ they each take responsibility for one specific player rather than an area, meaning Raphinha was supposed to be getting back to track Robertson, who was miles ahead of him. The Brazilian never got close to Robertson as he pushed forward and doubled up on Stuart Dallas with Luis Diaz, crossing into the Northern Irishman’s arm to hand Liverpool a penalty which Mohamed Salah converted.
Liverpool soon doubled their lead when Matip pushed forward on the ball into the space ahead of him, exchanged passes with Salah then finished past Illan Meslier.
Minutes later Matip again had space, but this time used it to slice a pass through Leeds’ marking into Salah in attack. The Egyptian held off Firpo, turned and slid a through ball in behind for Mané. With Ayling at his heels, Mané tripped, winning another penalty for Salah to convert.
Having run up a comfortable scoreline, Liverpool relaxed in the second half, mainly looking to simply hold onto possession.
It took until the 80th minute for the floodgates to open again. High pressure saw Meslier hand the ball straight to substitute Jordan Henderson, whose touch fell to Salah. Henderson attacked the box as Salah slipped a through ball into his path, before he squared it to Mané to finish.
Mané then got his second ten minutes later. Henderson was left free in midfield to receive the ball, drawing Dallas forward to stop him, which in turn left James Milner in space. Liverpool were now four-versus-three against Leeds’ backline, so Milner slid a through ball in behind Ayling for Divock Origi. Meslier came out to stop him, but the ball rebounded back to Mané to finish into an empty net.
They then rounded off their win with their now customary set-piece goal. With Origi and Forshaw blocking off Struijk, Van Dijk was easily able to avoid his compatriot’s marking and head home Robertson’s corner.
Leeds’ style opens up the game and turns it into a series of individual battles, but that doesn’t really work when the opposition’s players are individually much better than yours. Liverpool smashed them, putting the Reds just three points behind league leaders Manchester City.
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