Of all the coaches in the Premier League, Bruno Lage’s work at Wolves has flown most under the radar. David Moyes has deservedly earned plaudits for taking West Ham into the top four, while Graham Potter and Patrick Vieira have caught attention for Brighton and Crystal Palace’s performances, yet Lage has taken Wolves above those latter two, equal on points with Manchester United and just a point off of the European places without anyone noticing.
Ruben Neves replaced compatriot João Moutinho in midfield in the sole change from Wolves’ 0-0 draw with Burnley, as the side lined up in a 3-4-3 formation.
Jürgen Klopp stuck with exactly the same starting eleven as the one that beat Everton in the mid-week Merseyside derby, setting up in their usual 4-3-3 shape.
Liverpool quickly took control of the match. They used a box midfield to play through Wolves, with Thiago Alcântara dropping in next to Fabinho as the pair took up positions in the gaps between Wolves’ front three. This encouraged Leander Dendoncker and Neves to step up and pressure Liverpool’s deep midfielders, however this would open up space behind them between the lines for Diogo Jota and Jordan Henderson to take advantage of. The problem with this was that it left no one in attack: Liverpool would cut through Wolves in midfield then send the ball wide to the wingers in unthreatening positions against a back five.
Liverpool soon adapted to correct this issue. Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané started to tuck inside into the centre, with Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold, previously left a little redundant in Liverpool’s build-up, now providing the width. Thiago would frequently drop back into defence to form a makeshift back three, offering a bit more security so Liverpool’s full-backs had the confidence to bomb forward.
Nevertheless, Liverpool were still having trouble breaking down Wolves, thanks largely to the home side’s back five. Wolves were happy to sit back and soak up pressure, making it difficult for Liverpool to draw players out to create space, meaning that any time Liverpool got the ball into attack there was a host of Wolves defenders ready to outnumber them.
Wolves’ attacking plan made sense – they tried to pass out from the back, drawing Liverpool’s attackers into pressing the back three, which would in turn require their full-backs to step up to avoid Wolves’ wing-backs going free, which in turn created space for Wolves’ three attackers. In reality it didn’t really work though: Liverpool’s structure may not have lined up well with Wolves’, but they were able to make up for this shortfall with some intensity, pressuring Wolves into handing the ball back to them.
Later in the first half, Joël Matip became more involved, pushing forward on the ball to draw out Wolves players, opening up space for his teammates.
Early in the second half, Henderson pulled out to the touchline on the right, with Alexander-Arnold taking up more central positions, although some poor touches from Henderson meant this didn’t really work well. The captain was eventually replaced by Divock Origi, seeing Liverpool switch to a 4-2-3-1 with Jota playing behind the Belgian. Jota was later substituted off for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
Wolves on the other hand brought on Moutinho for Hwang Hee-Chan, bolstering the midfield by switching to a 3-5-2.
With just one minute of injury time left, Liverpool finally got their breakthrough. Virgil van Dijk hit a long pass towards Salah, who ran in behind and pulled the ball back for Origi to turn and finish, getting yet another key goal for the Reds.
Wolves had lots of men back in defence, but they were constantly welcoming Liverpool onto them and could have conceded much sooner. It appeared they were going to barely hold out only to fall at the final hurdle.
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