When a Hustle Goes Wrong
Bournemouth came to Anfield with a plan on Saturday afternoon, but they picked the wrong mark.
Organising a tactical plan for a specific match is a lot like organising a hustle. You need to assess the landscape, otherwise known as casing the joint. You need to determine what you’re good at. But perhaps most importantly of all, you need to identify a weakness in the opposition.
Sometimes, that weakness is structural, but often, it’s individual. This is the guy we want to target. This is our fool. And if you’re a professional pickpocket, this person is known as the mark.
Thieves working in tandem to steal from unsuspecting pedestrians would identify a potential victim by putting some chalk on their fingers, before touching their prey on their back as they brushed past them.
The chalk would leave a mark — hence the term — on whatever shoulder sat above the victim’s wallet, which would usually be inside their right or left back pocket.
On Saturday afternoon, somebody on Merseyside should have checked to see whether Ibrahima Konaté had chalk on the back of his Liverpool shirt.
A weird thing happened at Anfield as the Reds faced Bournemouth. Arne Slot deployed his usual back two, consisting of Konaté and Virgil van Dijk, but one of them was a lot busier than the other.
Indeed, the former accumulated 123 touches of the ball against the Cherries, which is a lot. Van Dijk, on the other hand, posted only 58 in the same defensive line.
That’s very strange. Konaté posted more than twice as many touches (!!) as his centre-back partner, even though both players amassed 90 minutes in the same game, playing just yards apart from each other.
We know Van Dijk isn’t exactly shy on the pitch. He’s no stranger to possession, yet five Liverpool players had more touches than him in Konaté, Ryan Gravenberch, Andy Robertson, Alexis Mac Allister and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Something doesn’t smell right.
So what happened? Well, when you’re coming up with a hustle tactical plan, you want to target a weakness. Now, I want to be clear, Konaté is not a weakness for any team. Not even close.
But, Bournemouth are a pressing side under Andoni Iraola, and it’s reasonable to suggest the Spanish coach identified Van Dijk as being better on the ball than Konaté. That’s probably right. Nobody would argue otherwise.
So once you’ve identified which opponent is the most likely to panic when he’s building from the back — the mark — you can do one of two things:
Allow him to have the ball, but limit his passing options to fluster him and encourage a silly decision in which he loses possession in a dangerous area
Press him to enforce an technical error in which he loses possession in a dangerous area
Well, Bournemouth kinda did both, but it was mostly option A. Iraola’s men took care of Van Dijk with Evanilson effectively standing on his toes in deeper areas, with Konaté often allowed to be Liverpool’s free man.
When Caoimhin Kelleher had possession at the back, the obvious option was clear most of the time. It was Konaté, with Bournemouth almost wanting the Reds goalkeeper to play that pass.
The French defender was tested, with Liverpool often having to build through him. In practice, he was forced to make constant quick decisions while Bournemouth had coverage of his teammates.
But guess what? Iraola picked the wrong mark. Well, he picked the mark that I probably would’ve picked, to be fair. But Konaté stood up. He didn’t crumble under pressure, no. He delivered.
"Especially the way we built up from the back, the amount of times we were able to find a free player in the midfield,” said Slot after the match when asked what pleased him. “In the second half it happened a lot, but in the first half it led to chances."
In fact, Konaté played a key role in two of Liverpool’s three goals, the first of which involved him registering an assist. After 26 minutes of action, he fed Luis Díaz with a lofted pass over Bournemouth’s high defence.
Just 11 minutes later, he played the pass before the assist. Again, with Iraola’s outfit attempting to smother Konaté, he hit a lofted pass to Darwin Núñez, who played a creative one-two with Mohamed Salah and found the net with an expert finish just seconds later.
Konaté was integral to both of those goals, and let’s not forget who scored Liverpool’s opener in Milan just a few days ago.
When you’re buying and selling players, this is what you need to think about, even with defenders. You want threat. Konaté is a freak on the defensive side of the game, sure, but he also offers tons of value around set-pieces at both ends, and based on his display against the Cherries over the weekend, he’s not bad in possession, either.
I liked Iraola’s hustle. It was a good plan, but ultimately, it’s not easy to pick out a mark when you’re up against this Reds team. Liverpool possess quality in abundance, with the last pass capable of coming from anywhere.
So next time you visit Anfield with the intention of stealing a few points, just leave your chalk at home.
Interesting that the roles were reversed against Forest the week before - van Dijk 130 touches, Konaté 66 (in 74 minutes). Presumably because in the earlier game Liverpool were dominant, if poor, and keen to get Virgil of the two on the ball, whereas this week Bournemouth were far more front foot and forced the issue. It seems odd to have the numbers so far apart, and even more so in successive league games, but the situations seem to explain it.
rich, literal pickings here today