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Liverpool eased into their post-Christmas fixtures by hosting Wolverhampton Wanderers at Anfield, who remain winless this season and have lost all of their last ten games.
Arne Slot made two changes to the side that beat Tottenham, as Jeremie Frimpong and Federico Chiesa replaced Conor Bradley and Dominik Szoboszlai.
Rob Edwards made four changes to the team that lost to Brentford, as Yerson Mosquera, Hugo Bueno, Mateus Mané and Tolu Arokodare came in for Ki-Jana Hoever, Fer Lopez, David Moller Wolfe and Jorgen Strand Larsen.
Liverpool primarily looked to attack down the left, having Milos Kerkez, Florian Wirtz and Curtis Jones exchange positions and passes.
At the beginning, they struggled to really get anywhere with this, passing and moving, but failing to penetrate the Wolves defence, as the away side would shift players across to ensure none of them went free.
It was only really when Liverpool began to involve a fourth man that they had some success, drawing the Wolves defenders across, then taking advantage of the space this created to play in a teammate.
One element Liverpool could use to their advantage was that Wolves’ wingers could be drawn to Liverpool’s deep midfielders, opening up pockets of space down the sides of the Wolves midfield.
Liverpool would sometimes try to attack down the right too, yet these attacks weren’t nearly as organised as the ones from the left.
Nevertheless, Liverpool’s opening goal came from the right side. Wolves had settled back into defending deep, so Liverpool passed the ball from side to side, and eventually Frimpong simply dribbled forward, forcing Wolves defenders towards him and back towards their own goal, then cut back the ball for his teammates waiting behind the play, with Ryan Gravenberch finishing first time.
Liverpool then immediately doubled their lead. They reclaimed the ball in midfield while Wolves had men pushed forward into attack, Hugo Ekitiké dribbled past André, Kerkez’s run drew away Mosquera, requiring Santiago Bueno to move across to stop the potential run of Ekitiké through the middle, which in turn opened up space for Wirtz, so Ekitiké slipped a pass through to the German to take a touch and poke the ball into the net.
Liverpool had run up what should have been a comfortable lead just before half time, and Wolves had offered next to nothing going forward at this point, mostly kicking the ball long for Liverpool to win both the initial header and second balls. Their sole bright spots had come from Tolu, who held off defenders well to create space and lay the ball off to teammates.
Wolves would pull a goal back early in the second half at a corner. Liverpool’s mixed set-up had most of their zonal defenders bunched around the goalkeeper, leaving 6ft 6 Tolu, stood just outside the six yard box, to be marked by 5ft 9 Alexis Mac Allister. Unsurprisingly the Nigerian easily evaded Mac Allister and headed at goal, with Bueno putting away the rebound.
Wolves had come out for the second half in a 3-4-1-2 shape, with Mané moved in behind the other forwards. This saw the two strikers push up to pressure the Liverpool centre-backs, while Mané would stick to Gravenberch, but Liverpool could easily play around this by having Jones drop in, or a full-back drop back.
Just because they could quite easily play around this, doesn’t mean they always did though. Wolves were still able to pressure Liverpool into giving the ball away in their own half on several occasions.
This change of shape also gave Wolves a man between the lines, meaning that when they caught Liverpool’s midfield stretched, Mané could pick up the ball and get at their defence.
It made for a very nervy second half, and although Liverpool did hold on to claim the three points, just about scraping a win against what is likely to be a historically poor opponent doesn’t exactly instil confidence.
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