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After putting an end to their losing streak against West Ham, Liverpool now faced a sterner test as they hosted newly-promoted Sunderland at Anfield.
Arne Slot made one change to the side that beat West Ham, as Andy Robertson replaced Milos Kerkez.
Régis Le Bris made two changes to the team that lost to Bournemouth, with Trai Hume and Brian Brobbey coming in for Bertrand Traoré and Wilson Isidor.
In possession Liverpool set up in broadly the same way as they did against West Ham, but had a lot less success. Like West Ham, Sunderland would defend in a 4-4-2 shape, yet they were much more compact.
Sunderland’s pressure saw them win the ball in the opening minute, however Liverpool soon adjusted to combat this. Whether it was Robertson holding back on the left, or a midfielder dropping back into defence, Liverpool would form a back three, outnumbering Sunderland’s front two. A Sunderland winger would often rush out to support them, but typically they were doing it too late to have any real effect, as both Ibrahima Konaté, and Robertson found space to the sides of the Sunderland forwards to play out.
Sunderland instead settled back into a mid-block, blocking up the centre. With Dominik Szoboszlai tucking in off the right, Liverpool had four men in midfield, but Sunderland were ensuring they had very little space to actually make use of them.
If Liverpool did attempt to play through these small spaces, they risked giving the ball away.
Inevitably this meant that Liverpool would pass wide then. On the right, Joe Gomez is a natural centre-back, so not the best candidate to provide width, while on the left, rather than the full-back, the width usually came from Cody Gakpo, who typically wants to cut in rather than go down the outside.
Even those players weren’t given space though. Sunderland’s full-backs were always very quick to get out to them, immediately smothering them.
Liverpool were allowing them to do this unpunished though. If the full-back was moving out to the wide man, then that would leave a gap between him and the centre-back, yet it was rare to see any runs to exploit this.
Instead Liverpool’s answer seemed to be getting Florian Wirtz to drift wide. This at least got him on the ball, but not in positions where it was particularly useful.
Liverpool weren’t looking great out of possession either. Like Sunderland, Liverpool formed a 4-4-2 shape, but they still tried to press high rather than dropping off into a mid-block. Sunderland’s centre-backs would split wide, while Granit Xhaka would drop back to the tip of a diamond with the goalkeeper. With four men against two, Sunderland easily outnumbered Liverpool’s frontline and passed around them.
When Liverpool pushed an extra man forward, they did have some success with their pressing, winning the ball back.
This would leave more space in midfield though, where Enzo Le Fée and Chemsdine Talbi could find space behind.
At half-time, Slot changed to a 4-3-3, as Mohamed Salah replaced Gakpo, seeing Wirtz move to the left and Szoboszlai into midfield.
This massively improved Liverpool’s pressing. The wingers would press the centre-backs while angling their runs to block off the full-backs, and Alexander Isak would stick to Xhaka. Cutting off the short options like this forced Sunderland to go longer, which was easier for Liverpool to deal with.
Now on the right it was Salah that provided the width, and, despite it not being his natural role, Gomez did a good job of making underlapping runs into that gap between the full-back and centre-back. If a midfielder followed him, then that opened up space inside, although there were times where Liverpool’s midfielders failed to take advantage of this.
On 65 minutes, Gomez was replaced by Curtis Jones, returning to that Szoboszlai-Jones-Salah combination that had worked well against Nottingham Forest.
It was Sunderland that took the lead though. They went long, with substitute Isidor winning his header, and although Liverpool won the ball, they failed to clear it, giving it straight back to Sunderland. Le Fée knocked the ball around Alexis Mac Allister to Talbi and he was given the space to look up and shoot from distance. Virgil van Dijk was perhaps concerned about Le Fée and Hume making runs either side of him, however as Jones and Robertson had them covered, he really should have stepped up to at least block the shot, especially when Talbi was making it so obvious he was going to shoot.
Slot made an attacking change, bringing on Hugo Ekitiké for Mac Allister, seeing Wirtz moved back into midfield.
Liverpool would equalise with ten minutes to go. Jones would pressure a clearance, winning the ball back in Sunderland’s half, then slipping it through to Wirtz. The German took a touch inside, jinked his way past Daniel Ballard, then finished with his left, deflecting in off Nordi Mukiele.
Liverpool would continue to push for a goal, putting together some nice passing combinations, yet had to settle for a point.
It may not have been the ideal result, but there were plenty of positives to take away from the game. After a poor first half, Slot made real changes to address the issues, rather than just throwing on attackers as he so often has this season, and Liverpool also didn’t fall apart after conceding.
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