Are Liverpool back to their best?

Liverpool 2.0 they're back baby or are they me and John McKenzie are going to discuss whether Liverpool are back to their very best cuz they used to be really good and then they had a period where they weren't amazing didn't get in the Champions League and now they managed to draw with man city which I think is the first time they've not lost them for a little while and they were quite good but the first thing we're going to talk about cuz John McKenzie is here it's how Liverpool press yeah I wanted to talk a little bit about the pressing from the game of the weekend it's different from how they used to press is that way um I mean it is slightly different but I I do think that the way that they press is very interesting in terms of obviously causes a lot of teams problems but I think that in this game there was certain things going on which actually made it quite easy for Man City to be able to manipulate because that might be because they know how they press right yeah in my head it used to be like quite a narrow three with a three behind it like this when they were pressing high but now it seems to be more of either subas or Jones would join in the front like a four like this the two behind so it's like a 4 to four yeah I mean in the past it was it was very much a sort of passive front line we've talked about this before I think with then your your Midfield three behind with the idea being that you're baiting these you're baiting these passes through into into space right um which which look really nice you you don't go close to the central midfielder and the opposition think oh you know nice Easy Pass inside the block turn and and and and jump from there do you know what's funny with that is that when you think of Liverpool we always talk about the high action pressing in your mind you're just pushing and chasing them all the time but no it's actually really similar to Newcastle we've talked about this before right they quite I mean Newcastle are a little bit more aggressive but they can end up with this very passive front line and then when the ball ends up going back that's when they that's the trigger for them to start being super aggressive so the idea again here is that the ball comes in Everyone Falls on it and then ball played back and that's the trigger then you've got them the opposition moving the wrong way um and the same sort of thing is happening now but what we're seeing is much more aggression from the the eights so the eights are often the ones who push out as You' said you get maybe slightly wider on the on the forward players yeah the wide forwards and then this opens up the space for them the two eights to jump up in certain situations and the idea I guess is to be you know if one goes forward the other one should stay in the middle and help out M mallister or whoever's playing six you end up with this almost like four2 four shape the problem is is that I find that quite manipulable cuz if you move the ball from one side to the other and obviously Man City a very good are doing these sort of very rotational buildup sequences where they're moving players around and pulling opponents around with them um you can get into these situations where you're able to pull both of the eights forwards and then you end up with this situation with someone like mallister just in covering a huge amount of space and and city with with all of their players sitting in the middle but then is the idea that with the new way they play where they have the inverted fback on inside is that meant to fill that space where then they're meant to fill up like that is that what they're meant to do no because like out of possession Alexander Arnold is still just playing as a normal uh as a as a fullback right so in in the high pressing phase Alexander Arnold will usually be in these sorts of areas now obviously if you lose the ball higher up the field um and you're in your possession phase obviously he's going to be Central and so that gives a little bit more stability in the middle but um I think I just think in this in this kind of scenario we've got a couple of things that man city can do to actually cause cause problems so aangi has in this game was doing the thing that we see where he jumps into Midfield Albero yes right um and that obviously like in in that sort of situation you you're then sort of you're automatically moving the opposition player Edison fills the space then what we're seeing is maybe someone like rodri dropping into the into the backat line in some way and then that pulling the the player with him so I've got a couple of screenshots just to explain that because I think it's in theory you know I love screenshots you do love screenshots so here's the situation Man City in their build up pH obviously playing this way down the field well this is dangerous because someone from the crowd has fired an arrow with that player there's two arrows actually pointing at the 28 oh my two this this shows you the the setup that we're talking about here right which is Liverpool with his nun as the striker two wide forwards and then your two eights and you can see that one of the eights has jumped up to press out because aangi had the ball yes so Curtis Jones in this instance has pushed right off the field um and Diaz has the ball here now what they're going to try and do now is try and manipulate this line so that it becomes much flatter much higher up and opens that space in the middle so if we move the tape forward um we can see aangi making that movement into the space and now Curtis Jones is presented with a problem because Edison is is going to take his place as as essentially a center back right and so Curtis Jones is going to stay on this side of a cani and and be aware of the fact he might have to jump up onto the goalkeeper the other thing that's going to happen um now that that move has been made is that rodri is going to jump in to this space that's opened up and that's going to pull Subs with him and obviously when you do that then you're pulling you're manipulating that that front line and what we've ended up with now is all five of Liverpool's forward pressing unit in in that line and then this overload in Midfield with the two 10 uh and then Halland here and then aangi here it's very clever isn't it yeah and and I think you know a lot of modern pressing is based around this idea that we try and manipulate these one manto man scenarios where you're jumping up making it really hard for the buildup but the problem is is that you're always going to leave that weakness in in the second line behind you so what we're seeing now is teams actually being able to manipulate the scenario so that in this instance you get that all that all those five players forward if you can force the opposition to do that then you all you need to do is find the space in the middle and then suddenly you're able to run at a fairly undefended back line so are you saying then that Liverpool's press is not as good as once it was even though they do seem to be playing well yeah well I think that it's it's certainly different from what it was and if we look at the the actual data so this is a vi from a piece by John Müller in the athletic yeah and what he's doing here is showing you how well team team are able to progress the ball against certain defenses so this is Liverpool over the last three seasons the more blue or purple that there is the better they've been at stopping ball progression as you can see in this season quite a lot of this more orange color so more progression is being allowed by Liverpool U for the opposition around the the I guess the line of their buildup and also in the space uh around here on in the wide areas and and so obviously the pressing isn't quite as good as it used to be and we I mean we spent the whole of last season talking about how their pressing was that good yeah in terms of ball progression at least it seems as though um actually Liverpool still are allowing quite a bit of progression then is not that might be strategic though right because it might be that you let them pass a bit more so you create more space in behind so when you win the ball in a a deeper so rather than a high press maybe a mid press or whatever so you leave more space to able to attack into because they're very good in transition again that's one of the things you can be better at would that not be maybe purposeful I think so and every out of possession system is always like the opposite side of the in possession system right yeah so in this scenario as you say may be the case that Liverpool are happy for the games to become a little bit more open because they're going to benefit from it but I think what it's clear to see is that what's happening here is that Liverpool are pressing in a different way to the way they have in the previous seasons and and in a way that's actually allowing that ball progression and I think it over the course of a Premier League season I think if you allow this amount of progression you you're probably going to end up um giving away big chances then of course P's Progressive passing might have been improved because they're getting Alexander Arnold into Central positions to be able to distribute the ball possibly that's one thing maybe that they're doing so we see this thing where they do the defense moves out to be more of a three when they move higher up the pitch when they get to maybe halfway then the left back can maybe go over and do the overlapping runs when it's Andy Robertson maybe tast does it they have this three we talked in the past there's a little bit of a problem when this player has to cover a lot of space over here when Alexander Arnold's in transitional positions trying to get back to his right back position or when he's in the Midfield but but you are getting a lot more progression from here and of course he scored the equalizer against City in the game on the weekend that's obviously very good but good good startat for you I found because we know they started doing this thing they I think they did it in substitute uh games like late substitute Games The Late Late in games last season but they changed it properly to do this system against Arsenal the end of last season in April and since then they've played 23 games you know how many games they've lost since then zero one one and that was against Tottenham when they had I think it's two red cards or at least definitely one so it's working they've won 15 games in the Premier League this is and they've drawn seven so that's working is that the only thing that's different that's made them better John well I mean I think this this system is really interesting I think because like when we see fullbacks inverting we obviously usually think of what is going on with Man City and for Man City a lot of that is about control and Central progression through passing right because you have now your overloading Midfield and the idea being then that you're able to um move the ball inside the block do these bounce passes move the ball through Central areas and and cause problems but that's very much not what Liverpool are doing I don't think because I think what a lot of the data shows is that Liverpool may be a little bit more dangerous in terms of ball carrying in when it comes to progressing the ball forward U which which I I guess presents other problems but as rather than passing it direct they're kind of carrying the ball to get the team up forward yeah breaking lines with running rather than passing yeah I think I think that's what we're seeing and and obviously we've talked about this being a meta in the Premier League more recently that's something that Pep Guardiola has been allegedly trying to do recently by bringing in players like Nunes and and kovic Etc Jer Jeremy Dau of course um but the other thing we've talked a lot about when we've talked about this system is that if you invert your fullback and you make your back line into a back three how how are you offering width in buildup um that becomes a problem and I think one of the things that we've seen um happening a little bit is you either have the width coming from your wide forwards who can then drop in you get nice access between your Center back and your and your wide forward that can be a nice way of progressing the ball but when your wide forward is Muhammad Salah you may not want him to be dropping in to help out and build that's it as well and if you think of Salah he's more he is more of a forward not a Winger like C these like true Wingers is what you get right and that's the the real difference because you maintain that wi all the way through so then they don't have that so yeah so well the other thing we've we've started seeing is well we we've always sort of seen is that you can offer that width through the the eights I've got Jones and subside the other way around because they were actually pressing in that way at the beginning of that game but often what you'll see is SAS live being the player who will move wide in order to help out to allow Salah to get to get further forward but I think that this system you know in terms of when you play this approach and you're passing the ball a lot um produces the sorts of chances that you might not necessarily want Liverpool to generate so I in the past I've been maybe a little bit uh qual about whether or not this is the best approach Liverpool could take but I think what we're seeing is that with the ability to actually play quite directly and run with the ball pull opponents apart in that way yeah um that this may may this may be a perfectly adequate way for Liverpool to be playing they're not trying to play like Manchester City um they're actually trying to play their own game but using this sort of structure as as the basis in my mind like klopp a lot of the things he wants to do with what we've referred to in the past is heavy metal football and and high pressing whatever those are terms we used for in the past but it's about creating moments of chaos that you are you've you've created yourself so you can be in control of it even though by Nature you can't control chaos I suppose can you can you control chaos yeah I mean well technically there's a difference between Randomness and Chaos right chaos is means that there is some order there Randomness means there's just no order whatsoever so technically with chaos I suppose you can control in some that's what villains do in cartoons isn't it they create they I want to bring chaos to the Earth yes the Joker but going back to what we talking about before with the out possession stuff if you are playing in this sort of system where you are moving maybe one of your eights out to provide width for a team like Liverpool who are trying to you know counter press in in in these sorts of areas centrally moving one of your number eights out out wide is you know it does raise questions about whether or not your counter pressing is less your movement and your position has to be absolutely so if he goes there and he has to go out there or you know the other way around if he goes in here so everything has to be highly coordinated and orchestrated so I guess when you get those single moments when they're not completely in tune that's when you get little errors you can see like tiny errors in coordination with a goal that City scored where um matip and Van djk are just slightly Out Of Tune and that's what leaves a tiny bit of space for Holland to get into I'll still on ball progression we're just talking about that so one of the things I noticed is that when Jones come off and they put on graen bur in the second half now uh Jones is amazing out of possession and I think is a we've talked about it before as a huge reason for why Liverpool done so well especially had win ball back but graur carries the ball a lot so he can burst away and the goal they score is Transitional moment so it's them creating a bit of chaos well they're not deliberately letting s triy to almost score but then they go on the way the Counterattack and the way they manage to break the line rather than passing is graur carries it beyond the player and then that's basically what breaks the line which gives them a little bit of an opportunity to come forward but I guess as well this shape we've got here on the the pitch this also would allow normally one of the center backs to have the ball and so therefore they'd be able to carry it and that's part of what they do yeah so I've got another couple of screenshots here as well where I wanted to show how the way that they're able to actually break lines is through is through carrying so we've talked already about usually when team inverts a fullback into the middle often that is designed to be able to pass the ball through and generate these sort of dangerous moments where you're running back lines in terms of just just through quick passing and and it's obviously difficult because you're in the middle of the block so you have all of the team around you making it harder so you need players who are really good in tight spaces good on the turn etc etc and Trent Alexander Arnold probably isn't that kind of player right so obviously Liverpool aren't trying to do that as much they're not trying to get Trent Alexander Arnold inside the block picking the ball up and doing these quick bounce passes um but what we are seeing is um actually as you said really nice examples of using ball carriers to pull blocks apart because that can cause problems as well because if you are able to get a a center back for example uh manipulate create space in the middle and then run then all of those players who are being marked in the middle have to or players who are doing the marking in the middle have to move around to to adjust so this is probably the best chance Liverpool created I think in the first half and in this instance you can see the Man City Block really nicely set they've got a couple of players inside but rather than playing the pass through into the middle here what we see is Joel mati actually just runs through this this Gap you got Jeremy dku here and Jeremy D out of possession I think um is still learning the ropes at Man City and so actually leaves a little bit of a gap for for ma to get through and you end up with this scenario now where you've got maup he's run right the way through that block now uh you can see all of the players having to converge in this sort of area because mat is posing a problem you can see Diaz having to step forward you can see AK having to track the the runner here that opens up space to play Salah in Salah gets the ball plays the ball um into the box and and Nunes has a good chance on goal so again using ball carrying to generate these to pull the the the block apart rather than using quick passing they're not passing as directly as they used to they're carrying the ball more um what else can we say about them they seem to be much more dangerous on the counter attack even though they always were a great in transition but they seem to be creating more deliberate scenarios where they can do that is that fair to say yeah I think I think this is the big question is like Liverpool 2.0 is is a lot about making games a little bit more transitional and doing that in in different ways so again I've got some more vid here I think that is illustrates this quite nicely from John Muller's piece in the athletic which people should check out but this is about like where you're controlling possession of the ball so on this VI where there's red areas it shows that the the the team is in control largely speaking and then blue is when the opposition are in control and I go over the course of a few se so red is Liverpool red is Liverpool in this instance yeah playing this way down the field as you can see the shapes are pretty much the same um nothing's changed in that respect but I think what you're seeing here is that a crab where Liverpool yes with with its pins out yeah where Liverpool are controlling the ball now is has slightly shifted over the last few seasons and obviously that comes from the fact that they are trying to move Alexander Arnold inside more so they're actually possessing the ball in this kind of area on the pitch but as you can see the higher areas of of control in previous Seasons um controlling possession has actually dropped now a little bit deeper which I guess means that they are going to be trying to create space to then run into in a in a different way um that almost reminds me of like five aside when people go into the corners like you never score from there I don't know why people do it so you go into the corners like you see last season when they weren't great and didn't even get the Champions League so that's when you go into the corners and trying to have fun there because you have to put the ball back in the middle and time you do that everyone gets back and blocks you and it's hard to create so you pull them back a little bit more you focus Less on having control in wide areas cuz you can't score from there and use them more to create space for others in the middle yeah and I think in this instance like because they're not able to control the ball as much in the opposition half that would explain why they have to be maybe a little bit more transitional um in order to get the ball into dangerous areas have to be or want to be I think have to be to be honest because I think they would probably want to go back to that system where remember Liverpool the good Liverpool teams of the past right where you'd see the center backs like well in advance of the center circle squeezing the opposition into their half that is useful for two reasons one is you're controlling the ball far away from your own goal you're controlling the ball around the opposition goal so you're going to be more likely to generate chances but also you're able to get that compression which allows you to do the counter pressing really well as well so I think that what we're seeing from Liverpool is not it's not quite to the level that they were in the past in terms of being able to control the ball control games um but it's still very very good they've got a very good attack probably means they're a little bit more open defensively but the big question I think is you know whether or not that can win them a title but another is here just just to show um in terms of passing towards goal so you can see in the past Liverpool were passing in these deeper areas more directly so you can see the red the red boxes here means you're passing a little bit more directly versus indirectly um and you can see over the course of the last few seasons Liverpool's passing has become a lot less direct I think that's probably because they are trying to use ball carrying a little bit more um so um I think that this is all very interesting and if and one more viz this is from the opter um guys the the analyst website you can find this on there and this is their team sequence style so on the bottom you've got passes per sequence so um the more passes you have you'll be in this area and then we've got the Direct speed in terms of the of of progression on the on the other a as inol progression how fast it goes from your goal to the other person's goal yeah that's right when you're when you're moving towards the opposition goal you're going faster if you're higher up the graph here and as you can see there's a general trend line here right which is you know the the the more passes you're doing the more slow and intricate you're going to be and generally you know the teams that we consider to be the good teams will be in this quadrant versus versus the teams up here who are going to be a lot more to do with like counterattacking and stuff you noticed that people always say like gu say there there's not one right way to play yeah we always think of the right way to play like the West Ham way where the Man United Way is always to have the ball and keep it like that yeah right um but I think Liverpool sort of stand out here because as we as we've said already right they're not doing as much passing you would expect them probably to be furthered this way on I thought closer to Newcastle Spurs are yeah um but they've got that Direct speed as well so again this all seems to suggest that they're generating a lot of speed in their buildup play just through ball carrying as well so yeah I I think this team sequence style is quite interesting because he's putting Liverpool in an area of the of the graph where he wouldn't necessarily expect a team that are challenging at the top of the table to be in and I think that's the interesting question is this play style because it's too loose that when you play I think so yeah because you're relying then on if you're going to be more open then the Poss ability is that oppositions can score against you right um and Liverpool at the moment are relying on the fact that they've got probably the most elite attack in the Premier League um to to sort of not bail them out defensively but say we're going to score more goals than you like Keegan's Newcastle yeah and I I think that's the big question right is that we've come from an we're in the middle of an era where control has been the watch word for the teams who who cause are generally going to win the Premier League even when Liverpool were winning the Premier League again they moved away from that really heavy metal football to a bit more of a control model where they were able to squeeze up the field and hold the ball and they weren't going as direct as they were the big question now is whether or not Liverpool can shift back to because it feels as though they're shifting a little bit more to original CL would you uh argue that you have to play more like the teams round B here in order to win a title I don't think that you necessarily have to I think it can be done and you know football is always evolving so it may be the case now that because Liverpool have much better players than they did in that early Klo iteration that they may may be able to get a lot of Joy but I think for me I always kind of think consistency is the most important thing when it comes to winning League titles and I think with the game being a little bit more open you're going to be less consistent well it's defense that wins you titles in theory right rather than attack so yeah and it's interesting that we've got Arsenal the other hand who are very much the opposite of of Liverpool in that respect where they've tighten things up defensively and the big question in all of their games is are they going to score a goal um so we we've almost got both of those arguments being made at the same time as Man City are still doing their thing so going to be an interesting title race from a stylistic point of view so I guess Liverpool 2.0 is kind of a solution to problems that they had last season we've seen where the Chang from where they're controlling the ball how they're moving it forward and how they're pressing uh and whether it's by all because how that's exactly how they want to play or because how they have to play they are now not losing games they've only lost one remember since they changed to this sort of system which I believe is the design of Pep blinders who took it to Klo and told him this is how it would work and so what we've probably got is not Liverpool 2.0 but more like Liverpool version 3.9 final version underscore some underscores in final draft this one what else you put the definitely this one definitely this one capital letters brackets actually this one and then you just have the like just use this one final draft or final version version three yeah there you go if you like this video please consider subscribing to the channel the athletic is 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Channel: The Athletic FC

Views: 171,344

Keywords: Tifo, tifo football, tifo irl, tifo in real life, football, soccer, football tactics, premier league

Id: 6Es7yISajrc

Length: 22min 42sec (1362 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 27 2023