Having only won one match in their last six – against Aston Villa’s youth team – and a trip to Tottenham Hotspur in mid-week, a cup draw against their biggest rivals couldn’t have come at a worse time for Liverpool.
Jürgen Klopp made five changes to the team that lost to Burnley, returning Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino to the starting eleven but dropping Sadio Mané to the bench as Curtis Jones was given a rare chance in attack. Rhys Williams came in for Joël Matip in defence and James Milner replaced Xherdan Shaqiri in midfield in Liverpool’s usual 4-3-3 formation.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer made five changes of his own after defeating Fulham in mid-week, bringing in Dean Henderson, Victor Lindelöf, Scott McTominay, Donny van de Beek and Marcus Rashford for David de Gea, Eric Bailly, Fred, Bruno Fernandes and Anthony Martial. He kept with their usual 4-2-3-1 formation.
In the league, United defended their way to a cagey draw, however this approach made less sense in the cup, where United had no points lead to protect and a draw would only force extra time with another match to be played on Wednesday. Therefore, United were willing to be a lot more open in this match.
Rather than simply sitting back and hoping to counter with long balls forward, United had much more of an attacking plan this time around. Much of this was to do with the positioning of the full-backs, who, rather than push forward down the line, would stay back almost in line with the centre-backs, who would stay fairly narrow themselves rather than spreading out across the pitch.
On the face of it this was a more defensive choice, but it manipulated Liverpool’s pressing scheme well. Liverpool’s wingers will typically press the centre-backs while curving their runs to block the pass into the full-backs. With the full-backs positioned deep though, Salah and Jones would be forced into high positions in line with the United centre-backs, allowing diagonal passes out to the wings behind them.
In order to effectively press United, the wingers would have to narrow their positions and let Luke Shaw and Aaron Wan-Bissaka go, passing them on to the full-backs. As a result, Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold were drawn high to press the full-backs, leaving Fabinho, Williams and Thiago Alcântara alone against United’s attackers.
This also applied to counter-attacks. Marcus Rashford and Mason Greenwood would take risks by not following Alexander-Arnold and Robertson back as they overlapped, however this meant that when United retrieved the ball they could hit the flanks quickly and break at Liverpool.
This is how they scored their equalising goal. Paul Pogba won back the ball on the edge of his box and Van de Beek spread it wide to Rashford, dragging Williams and Fabinho across. Rashford then switched the play over to Greenwood on the opposite flank in space – Robertson unable to get back in time to stop the teenager from finishing past Alisson Becker.
If Liverpool wanted to keep the wingers wider, Georginio Wijnaldum would push up alongside Firmino to press, however this would leave more space in midfield for United.
The flip-side of this greater openness from United was that Liverpool had more space to attack. United would drop off into a mid-block then get Edinson Cavani to press the Liverpool defenders, however he would often run straight at a centre-back rather than curving his run to block the pass into the other one, making it easier for Liverpool to play around him.
Thiago would also frequently drop into the backline, ensuring Cavani was outnumbered. Van de Beek or Rashford would be forced up to support him, leaving either a midfielder or Alexander-Arnold free for Liverpool to play forward.
United’s willingness to play out also backfired at times, losing the ball near their area on several occasions. This led to Salah’s second goal – Liverpool robbing United of the ball in their half and springing forward while they were spread out.
The greatest problem United faced was simply that they weren’t packing their defence though. Liverpool’s attackers are off-form, but they are off-form specifically because they have been starved of space. They haven’t stopped being incredibly dangerous, it’s just that most teams have surrounded them with defenders. Give them that space and they go straight back to being dangerous.
This was shown neatly when Liverpool scored the opener. Firmino dropped off to pick up the ball in midfield and was given the space by McTominay to turn and slip a through ball into Salah. Shaw failed to drop off or cut out the ball, leaving the Egyptian free to pick up the pass and dink it over Henderson.
With Rashford and Greenwood often left high up the pitch, a lot was being asked of United’s full-backs. Salah and Jones would tuck inside while Alexander-Arnold and Robertson would overlap, leaving Shaw and Wan-Bissaka questioning whether to follow the wingers or stay wide to combat the full-backs.
Shortly into the second half, United took the lead. Greenwood got the ball near the centre circle and returned the favour to Rashford with a ball in behind, which the Mancunian ran onto and finished.
Much has been made of Williams’ lack of pace yet, while he lacks the freakish recovery speed of Joe Gomez and Virgil van Dijk, he’s nowhere near as slow as someone like Nat Phillips. There is a minimum requirement in terms of pace to operate in a high line, but the likes of Jamie Carragher or Mat Hummels were hardly sprinters and they flourished under Rafa Benitez and Klopp respectively.
What those two had and Williams doesn’t was a good reading of the game though. Throughout the match, Williams was able to keep up in attack only to ruin it by trying to cut out the ball and missing it, then not having the pace to recover for his mistake. This goal was a perfect example: Williams trying to cut out Greenwood’s assist and missing it, letting Rashford through on goal.
This isn’t something that can reasonably expected of a nineteen year-old making his first steps in the senior game to know though. Williams has the attributes to potentially play for Liverpool in the future, but he might not – all we know is he can’t be trusted right now. He was left exposed and shouldn’t be written off, nevertheless Williams did have a poor game, and a threadbare Liverpool aren’t in a position to walk him through games, however the club shouldn’t be in a position where they are left having to rely on him.
Likewise Liverpool’s set-up asks three midfielders to cover the ground that most clubs would ask four or five men to do. Having played deep into August with Bayern Munich and now recovering from an injury, Thiago is clearly struggling to cope with the running demanded by a system that is new to him. He has shown he can fit into similar pressing systems before, but we don’t know how that will translate across to Liverpool and the Premier League, and they aren’t exactly putting him in a situation where this can be accurately judged. He’s been thrown in at the deep end in a system already broken by injuries, playing in front of a makeshift defence consisting of the players who should be helping him adapt to the midfield.
After Liverpool equalised, Solskjaer made a double change to shore up his midfield and freshen his attack. Van de Beek was brought off for star man Bruno Fernandes, while Fred replaced Greenwood, pushing Pogba out to the right side. The Brazilian offered a more solid defensive option in the middle, but Pogba was still more secure against Robertson than Greenwood.
This proved to be an excellent substitution as Fernandes fired home a free-kick with twelve minutes remaining and United held out to win comfortably.
Getting knocked out of the FA Cup might help ease Liverpool’s fixture congestion, however a loss against their biggest rivals does nothing to ease the sense their season is unravelling.
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