With FA Cup finalists Leicester City and Chelsea still to play each other in the league, Liverpool have a potential saving grace from this horror show of a season, but in order to sneak their way to Champions League qualification they can’t afford any slip-ups.
Jürgen Klopp made two changes to the side that beat Manchester United at Old Trafford. Diogo Jota’s season has been ended by injury, bringing Sadio Mané back into the starting eleven, while Georginio Wijnaldum was given a much-needed rest, permitting Curtis Jones his first start since the loss to Chelsea. They set up in their usual 4-3-3 formation.
Already relegated, Sam Allardyce made two changes to the team that lost to Arsenal. Callum Robinson and Mbaye Diagne both dropped to the bench as Hal Robson-Kanu took time out from hawking turmeric to make his first Premier League start in three-and-a-half years, joined by Grady Diangana as West Brom switched to a 4-4-2 shape.
West Brom started the game aggressively. They pressed high up the pitch, with their front four and the two midfielders pushing up to stop Liverpool from playing out.
When attacking, they pushed this front four forward to leave Liverpool with no cover at the back as they hit long balls toward them.
This is how they took the lead. Liverpool had got away a free-kick but West Brom sent the ball back the other way while they had four attackers against Liverpool’s back four, meaning that when Rhys Williams stepped out to meet Matheus Pereira, he left a gap for Hal Robson-Kanu to make a run into. Nathaniel Phillips was occupied by Diangana and Andy Robertson by Matt Phillips, so neither was in a position to plug the gap, allowing the Welshman to collect the ball and finish past Alisson Becker with his left foot.
West Brom were already wary of the threat posed by Liverpool’s full-backs, getting Diangana and Matt Phillips to track Trent Alexander-Arnold and Robertson when they pushed forward into attack, forming a back six, and having taken the lead they began to drop off more rather than continuing to pressure high up the pitch.
The weakness of this approach was that it left only two men in midfield. Liverpool had Thiago Alcântara, Jones and Fabinho there, while Roberto Firmino and Mané would drop off into this space too, meaning it was actually fairly easy for them to pass through the outnumbered West Brom midfield. Despite having a back six, there were gaps to exploit in West Brom’s defence too because players kept being drawn out of the backline to follow Firmino and Mané.
Liverpool weren’t taking full advantage of this though, mainly looking to hit direct passes in behind for Mohamed Salah.
For their equaliser, Liverpool were somewhat fortunate that referee Mike Dean mistakenly gave a free-kick rather than a drop ball when he got in the way of one of their moves, however this allowed the flow of play to continue. Fabinho took the kick quickly to get Firmino moving forward again and exchange passes with Mané. Dean’s obstruction had allowed West Brom to get men back though and Diangana stepped in to win the ball back from Firmino, only for Mané to be the quickest man to his attempt at laying off the ball for a clearance. Mané’s interception rolled right onto the left foot of Salah, who expertly found the far corner from the edge of the area with a first-time shot.
West Brom began to press again in the second half yet couldn’t muster the same intensity, allowing Liverpool to play down the outside of them. Whenever Liverpool had the space to break forward quickly, they were looking dangerous, although West Brom were quick to get men back. It soon became the familiar story from the first half of Liverpool’s season, before they really collapsed, where Liverpool were forced into breaking down a packed defence.
Klopp made attacking changes aimed at doing just that. First Xherdan Shaqiri was introduced in place of Jones, then Wijnaldum for Williams, with Fabinho moving back into defence. Thiago, Alexander-Arnold and Robertson were all looking inventive from deep, while the attackers were able to combine well, yet Liverpool were still unable to find a breakthrough as the clock ticked down.
As a last throw of the dice, Alisson went up for a corner in the dying seconds of the game and tucked a beautiful flicked header past Sam Johnstone, becoming the first goalkeeper to score for Liverpool in their history. It was bizarre, but from a strategic point of view it made perfect sense: West Brom mark man-to-man, yet they didn’t allocate a man to mark the opposition goalkeeper, meaning the Brazilian was left free as a bird at the near post to get his header. Where exactly Alisson learned to head like that is another question though.
Alisson quite possibly saved Liverpool’s season, however, despite it following a familiar pattern for the Reds, they actually played quite well. They got forward well and had some good passing moves, but just couldn’t get the ball over the line without their goalkeeper’s help. This was partly because West Brom simply weren’t very good: they worked hard, however Liverpool always looked like they could find a gap somewhere, and the Baggies were saved more by numbers than by organisation until they were finally punished.
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