THE BILLING OF Liverpool versus Aston Villa at Anfield on Saturday was an easy one – The return of the Prince who would soon be King.
Steven Gerrard is seen by many Liverpool supporters as the undoubted number one contender to take over from Jurgen Klopp when the time for him to move on comes around.
His results since taking over at Villa have been promising. Three wins and a defeat to Manchester City, in a game where they had higher xG than the current table toppers, was impressive going.
Gerrard arrives with a plan
Gerard, to his credit, arrived at Anfield with a very definite plan. In a nod to the festive year we are entering, his side lined out in the Christmas tree formation, 4-3-2-1.
The aim here, in theory at least, would have been to populate the centre of the field while also hoping his outside centre midfielders, McGinn and Luiz could fill those half spaces that Salah and Mane love to operate in.
As is the case with all formations though, when you overcompensate in certain areas, you inevitably leave yourself shy in others.
In deciding to leave Alexander-Arnold and Robertson as ‘free’ players he was trying to be brave but ended up looking foolish.
Festive formation is a gift for Liverpool full backs
Early in the game we can see Villa’s set up at the front, with Young moving across to the side of Liverpool’s build up play, while Ramsey tucks in central.
The problem for Villa though was that Liverpool were finding it too easy to switch the play from side to side.
Below we can see that it is impossible for Ramsey to get across to Robertson when Van Dijk plays it out that side.
In the situation, McGinn, playing on the right of the three centre midfielders is the player who is expected to shuttle across to meet the left back while Villa’s other midfielders tuck around.
Villa look reasonably well set up above but Liverpool very quickly manage to create a very different picture.
Realising that their opponents were playing without wingers, Liverpool quickly went about overloading the wide areas, with both Thiago and Henderson spending a lot more time out there than they normally would.
Here we can see Oxlade-Chamberlain and Mane coming deep to join the build up play with Thiago who has come out to the left. This allows Robertson to dart in behind and receive a pass in a dangerous position.
The other point of note in the image above is the position of Alexander-Arnold.
Given their shape, Villa were always going to give up space on the opposite side of the field to the one the ball was on.
When facing traditional full backs this usually isn’t an issue as they are the least likely players to be involved in the passage of play.
Alexander-Arnold and Robertson are about as far removed from traditional full backs as you can get though, and when the cross comes from Scot it is his partner in crime who is shooting at goal from the edge of the box.
Targett’s lunging block is all that stops the two from combining for a goal.
Five minutes later and the roles are reversed.
This time the pass from Matip to Alexander-Arnold bypasses Young and so Luiz has to shuttle across.
Henderson, spotting the opportunity for the overload, makes a run down the right as the ball is played through to Salah. He receives the ball back from the Egyptian and recycles it back out to Alexander Arnold who’s cross to the back post is met by an unmarked Robertson.
This time Martinez’s save denies the duo.
Henderson and Thiago show game intelligence to help exploit Villa Weaknesses
As the half wore on, Villa’s game plan continued to be undone by the high starting positions of the Liverpool full backs. Henderson’s movement was also increasingly becoming an issue.
Below we see Thiago open out and fire long diagonal ball to Robertson. This one pass effectively takes both Ramsey and McGinn out of the game with Cash now the one expected to try and get to the full back.
Henderson, seeing that Oxlade-Chamberlain had come towards the play, makes the opposite run to become the centre forward but he fails to sort his feet out quick enough to capitalise when arriving onto Robertson’s super delivery.
In the very next play, Henderson again caused problems, this time drifting wide again.
He created an overload on the right flank and forcing Targett to come out from left back to close him down. The issue for Villa here was the knock-on effect of leaving Mings up against Salah.
On this occasion Salah jinked inside him before Martinez denied him with another good save. It wouldn’t be the last time that Mings would struggle to contain him.
The first fifteen minutes of the second half seemed to follow a repetitive pattern, with Liverpool continuously rampaging down the left with Robertson and Mane before then looking to exploit the space created on the right for Salah and Alexander-Arnold.
Below we see Robertson just failing to pull the ball back to the edge of the box to Alexander-Arnold.
Soon after his cross did find his fellow full back, but his effort was well blocked my Mings.
And so it continued, with Thiago regularly taking out the Villa midfield with just one pass down the side of them to set Robertson and Mane away.
On this occasion Salah, not for the first or last time, was guilty of poor decision making in opting to shoot rather than take advantage of the endless space that Alexander Arnold was managing to find.
With an hour gone, and Liverpool somehow still scoreless, they finally managed the breakthrough. Usurpingly it came from a pattern of play that we had previously seen already.
Thiago was once more given all the time in the world to open out and fire a diagonal ball out to the right wing to where Henderson had again pulled out to.
He and Alexander-Arnold exchanged passes and positions before he was presented with the easiest of through balls to put Salah in 1 v 1 with Mings.
Once Salah got inside the box the outcome seemed almost inevitable, with Mings taking him down for the penalty.
Liverpool should have added to that goal and made things more comfortable.
Salah was at first too greedy when again ignoring Alexander-Arnold’s overlap, and then not greedy enough when trying to square to Jota instead of going it alone.
Conclusion
As you can see from the above, this game was far more one sided than the score line suggested.
The reason I haven’t highlighted any of the Villa chances was simply because they didn’t have any. They finished the game with an xG of 0.12 compared to Liverpool’s 2.55.
Despite the constant issues out wide, Steven Gerrard stuck with side’s approach for the full game. His only tactical change was to go from a 4-3-2-1 to an equally narrow 4-3-1-2 for the last fifteen minutes.
The Anfield faithful may still come away from the game believing he is the right man to succeed Jurgen Klopp but surely he will have to react quicker in the future to help his players out when they are so clearly struggling to deal with the same patterns of play.
Liverpool, on the other hand, were quick to assess Villa’s starting shape and exploit its weaknesses.
They wouldn’t have expected to have come up against this formation, but they effortlessly managed to weigh it up and pick it apart.
Whether that game intelligence came from the sideline or from the players on the field we don’t know but on this evidence, they look far superior in both aspects of the game.
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