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Newly promoted Burnley hosted the reigning champions at Turf Moor.
Scott Parker made two changes to the team that lost to Manchester United, as Josh Laurent and Loum Tchaouna replaced Jacob Bruun Larsen and Hannibal Mejbri.
Not match fit, new signing Alexander Isak failed to even make the bench for Liverpool, as Arne Slot kept with the same side that beat Arsenal.
Right from the off, Burnley set out to defend, setting up in a 5-4-1 formation. This shape allowed them to congest the middle of the pitch, making it hard to play through them, but the back five gave them good defensive width too, with the full-backs close to the Liverpool wingers, making it hard to play around them as well.
Liverpool soon got to work breaking Burnley down though. In the opening minutes of the match, they were largely overloading the left side – the same strategy we saw against Crystal Palace in the Community Shield.
It didn’t take long for Liverpool to begin overloading the middle instead though. Ryan Gravenberch would hold back at the base of the midfield, but Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai would often push forward to join Florian Wirtz between the lines, while Hugo Ekitiké would frequently drop off too.
With four players all looking to pick up the ball in this area, Burnley’s midfield stayed narrow in a bid to stop passes getting through. Tchaouna in particular seemed focussed on blocking the pass into Mac Allister.
As a result Milos Kerkez was often left free in this inside channel on the left, in space to potentially get the ball into attack. Liverpool were frequently slow in getting the ball into him in this position though, giving Tchaouna the time to get across to him before he could do anything with it.
When he did receive the ball with time, he mostly looked to hit crosses towards the back post. Mohamed Salah had started the game out on the flank, but soon came inside, with Szoboszlai instead providing the width on the right, so these crosses were aimed towards him and Ekitiké, although they were never successful.
Even if they had been more accurate though, Burnley had the box stuffed with players, so the odds of getting a head on the ball were in their favour. Liverpool had found a gap to get the ball into attack, but they weren’t actually disrupting Burnley’s defensive line.
Kerkez was substituted for Andy Robertson before half-time and literally the first thing the Scot did upon receiving the ball was run at Laurent, beating him to shoot at goal. Minutes later he would attempt a run in behind, although the pass was off, and soon after he overlapped down the outside. Robertson was clearly doing more to actually engage and move the Burnley defence than Kerkez had.
It wasn’t all the Hungarian’s fault though. Robertson did do more to get forward and bother the Burnley defence, but in the second half he often resorted to crossing too, and although his deliveries were more accurate, that didn’t really help matters.
Wirtz would often pop up in this same pocket of space too, only to find there was no one for him to actually pass to in attack. Ekitiké was frequently coming short to help progress the ball – he too would drop off into this little gap a few times – yet that pulled him away from the box. Salah was now more central, but he was still on the opposite side and so couldn’t be found easily, while Cody Gakpo would stay wide until he received the ball, and only then would he cut inside.
It’s all very good to say Kerkez, Robertson or Wirtz should be driving forward to engage the defenders, but if ultimately there’s no one there to take advantage of any gap they open up by doing so, what’s the point?
The only time Liverpool really managed to do this was when Gravenberch pushed forward, exchanging passes with Kerkez to draw out Laurent and attack the box.
Burnley’s attack was pretty much non-existent throughout. Liverpool committing so many players forward left them potentially open to counter-attacks, but pulling all eleven men back so deep meant Burnley had little opportunity to take advantage of this when they did win back the ball.
If anything, their handful of attempts to get Jaidon Anthony and Tchaouna up in support of Lyle Foster at the beginning of the second half worked against them, as it left more space in midfield for Liverpool to take advantage of on the counter themselves, with Wirtz seeing much more of the ball.
Liverpool’s right side also perked up a bit in the second half. As Mac Allister went off injured at half-time, Szoboszlai was moved into midfield, with Conor Bradley replacing him at right-back. Those two, along with Salah and Wirtz, were happy to swap positions, so there were a lot more combinations on that side helping to move around Burnley’s defenders than there had been in the first half.
For the most part though, Liverpool were simply hitting wave after wave of crosses into the box. Burnley would repel them, but having pushed Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konaté high up the pitch to really pin them back, Liverpool would win the second balls and another attack would start. These attacks were continuous, but at the same time Burnley didn’t seem to be having too much issue dealing with them. Even when a red card saw Burnley reduced to ten men, nothing about the game really changed.
Burnley didn’t quite manage to hold out until the final whistle though. Having eleven men defending their goal meant there was little space to create chances for Liverpool, and there were plenty of people on hand to block those shots they could get away, however sitting back meant that if a Burnley player did make a mistake, it was happening close to goal.
Jeremie Frimpong sent in a cross, and Hannibal turned his whole body round, swinging his elbow at the ball to block it. It was an easy mistake to make, but Burnley sitting so deep meant that he did it in his own box, giving away a penalty, and Salah stepped up to convert it.
It was another late goal for Liverpool, but it was in different circumstances to the others. This was Liverpool slowly grinding down a stubborn defence and finally getting a last gasp breakthrough, rather than the chaos seen against Bournemouth and Newcastle. It hadn’t been a wholly convincing performance, but the Reds had generally had the right ideas.
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