Honeymoon

Liverpool FC 1, Newcastle United FC 2 (Newcastle wins the League Cup)

Photo credit: caught offside

Liverpool got played off the pitch for the first 55 minutes. The end. That’s all there really is to say as far as overall play is concerned. You may be inclined to write the performance off due to the Champions League tie last Tuesday and that would be understandable. There are bits and pieces from how this game played out to complain about, but not enough when you are defeated as comprehensively as was the case on Sunday.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

This is the first match where I well and truly felt Arne Slot and his staff made a number of puzzling decisions. So while I’m not declaring the honeymoon over, I think it would be a better use of our time to look at decisions I didn’t quite understand.

The Forwards

Photo credit: independent.ng

The starting forwards were a total non-factor in the series against PSG and in this League Cup Final, with subs Darwin Núñez and Harvey Elliott being responsible for the lone Liverpool goal in the UCL series, and Federico Chiesa - with an assist from Harvey Elliott - being responsible for the lone goal against Newcastle. Diogo Jota in particular brought absolutely nothing. I gave him a shout out in my recap from the first PSG away tie, as he seemed to be crafty enough to create a small amount of danger for the PSG defenders, but it led to a grand total of 0 shots on goal over both legs.

This group of starting forwards aren’t posing any questions of opposing back lines, making it easier for opponents to play further up the pitch with an aggressive backline. There was a point in time when doing that against a team with Mo Salah was a recipe for disaster, but Salah no longer wins take ons or creates danger with his progressive carries.

These days, Mo Salah relies on a half court offense to use a basketball term, as he’s no longer effective on the fast break. Against quality opposition there is no concern about Salah getting behind them, and in the half court offense they are shading an extra defender or two to force Salah to pass the ball. With this being the case, the Liverpool attack has been dead in the water.

To be fair to Slot, he’s rotated heavily at the center forward spot, starting the season with Jota, then using Darwin when Jota was injured, then going with Díaz when Núñez proved unreliable. Jota is once again the first choice at center forward. This says everything about how Slot views his options at center forward: he views Jota has providing the highest quality.

So he’s clearly had his hands tied, and this is why I’m not overly arsed about the lineup today; but I think there was another option here.

I simply didn’t understand the decision to go with a lineup featuring Jota at center forward given how precious little quality he’s displayed. Sure, he’s coming back from injury, but he’s shown absolutely nothing other than being miles off what you need from the tip of the spear in the attacking third.

Again, to be fair, Slot’s hands were tied as Cody Gakpo is just coming back from injury and probably not ready for a full 90+ minutes of play. If he was, you could possibly start Gakpo and slide Lucho over to center forward and rely on him playing a larger role in the build up. It’s not a great solution, particularly since we have plenty of data to suggest Slot views Jota as his best 9, but it may have proven more effective as far as not losing the battle in the midfield as comprehensively as he did today.

Given how badly Newcastle bossed the Liverpool midfield in the first matchup this season, and given the fact Liverpool was missing Trent Alexander Arnold’s genius ability to delete the mid block Newcastle favors, I would have liked to see 4 midfielders start the second half, if not be in the Starting XI.

I don’t think I’m getting out over my skis here given there was a point in time when Slot used 4 mids against Villa on the road. In that tie Liverpool out-chanced Villa 2.51 xG to 0.67 and were unlucky to settle for a draw. He used 4 mids in the very next tie, a 0-2 win against Citeh at the Etihad. So Liverpool hasn’t struggled when they’ve removed the center forward and replaced him with another attacking mid.

With this being the case, I’d like to see him use 4 midfielders if Jota continues to provide little if any quality.

The Build Up

When the build up was starting with Caoimhín Kelleher, the Reds would often play a long pass to Mo Salah near midfield. On the one hand, you can understand the desire to get Salah one on one against Dan Burn, but is an aerial duel really the way to go about that matchup? With the official allowing large amounts of heavy physical contact, that wasn’t a very promising approach, and sure enough Burn won pretty much every single challenge. The Reds didn’t seem to have a plan in place to take him out of his comfort zone, e.g. defend Mo Salah in space.

Progression seemed to work better when the Reds attacked the left flank with Luis Díaz proving more capable of asking questions of Kiernan Trippier. You also had Andy Robertson to bolster the left side of the build up as opposed to Liverpool missing Trent’s service on the right flank. Liverpool’s first quality scoring chance came just inside of the one hour mark when Lucho carried the mail through the middle of the pitch, leading to a Curtis Jones shot that required a tricky save from Nick Pope.

Overall, I was unimpressed with how slow Slot was to react to his side’s poor play, particularly after seeing him be so decisive in making changes at halftime against Southampton.

Set Pieces

This has been a long term issue, as the Reds have proven mid when it comes to success on their set pieces. While I absolutely loathe the touchline shot of the set piece coach acting like a complete nutter as his side lines up a kick, this is an area where the Reds need to focus this offseason. Today we saw Alexis MacAllister marking Dan Burn on corner kicks. There are two things I think it’s important to keep in mind:

1. You want Ibou and Virgil in the box, so they can’t venture out to where Burn was stationed.

2. Macca is a tough little bulldog, so to a certain extent I can get the thinking of having him try to keep Burn from getting to where the kick is going.

With that being said, this seems like one area where you could possibly use Jarell Quansah to good effect. To be fair, Quansah probably still isn’t prepared for proper Premier League physical duels, but he may have presented a better vertical challenge.

Physical Play

At the very start of the Premier League campaign, Slot lifted Jarell at halftime of the Ipswich tie and went on to lament the team losing too many duels. So this is something Slot was aware of and concerned about at the start of the season.

In the first half of two of the three ties against Newcastle, Slot’s midfield was thoroughly bossed. They were completely played off the pitch. This is a departure from Jürgen Klopp’s tenure as the Reds seemed to always rise to these sorts of challenges.

There are a number of factors here:

1. If you challenge and the opponent dives, this is often rewarded by PGMOL officials.

2. Egregious contact occasionally goes unpunished. I’ll leave it at that.

3. The Reds aren’t as aggressive with their press as they were under Klopp, and while there are clear benefits when it comes to fewer players lost to injury, it also can result in your side being reactive rather than proactive.

The good news here is the poor physical play has mostly been contained to matches against Newcastle, where Sandro Tonali and Joelinton provide world class shithousery.

On to the Next One

While having been denied two trophies over the past week truly sucks, the Reds are in perfect position to regroup and claim the league crown. Once that has been accomplished we can look at areas where the side may look different next season.

Up the Reds!