Diamonds and Decoys
Pep Guardiola arrived at Anfield with a trump card.
I really didn’t fancy sitting down to write this one, but here we are. Maybe I’ll feel better once I’ve reflected on what happened at Anfield on Sunday afternoon.
Another loss for Liverpool. Another last-minute winner conceded. Will this season ever end?
Alright, so despite the obvious misery surrounding the result, tactical things happened in this one. Liverpool struggled in the first half in particular, with Manchester City posting ten shots worth about 1.2 xG.
For perspective, the Reds have never conceded more attempts at Anfield in a single half of Premier League football. At least not since Opta started collecting this stuff in 2003.
Not cool. Liverpool got largely dominated, with their struggles stemming from the ace that Pep Guardiola had up his sleeve. City arrived with a surprise approach on the ball.
You’d ordinarily expect Antoine Semenyo to play on the flanks. But Guardiola seemed to instruct him to drift towards the centre of the park, forming a diamond shape of sorts with Rodri, Bernardo Silva and Nico O’Reilly.
Milos Kerkez wasn’t sure whether to follow Semenyo into the centre, with the City attacker overloading the middle and thus presenting his teammates with a foothold over proceedings. The kind that Liverpool usually look to establish for themselves.
On top of that central control, Erling Haaland seemed intent on dragging Virgil van Dijk towards the left wing, occasionally forcing the Dutchman to essentially swap places with Kerkez.
Gianluigi Donnarumma went long in the direction of Haaland on numerous occasions after City had enticed Liverpool’s press. The Etihad viking didn’t win that many headers, but I think Guardiola’s plan was to present Semenyo and Omar Marmoush with opportunities in behind, with Van Dijk out of the picture.
As for Liverpool, I’m not sure it was Arne Slot’s intention, but the Reds mostly bypassed the middle third in the first half, hitting plenty of long passes to Cody Gakpo, Mohamed Salah and Hugo Ekitike, with none of them showcasing much of a hold-up game.
Based on how things played out, it looked like Liverpool wanted to kill City in transition. A two-man midfield with four forwards in Gakpo, Salah, Ekitike and Florian Wirtz. Get the ball to them. Test Guardiola’s defenders in big spaces. Forget about dominating the centre.
It didn’t work. The ball simply kept coming back. I’ve said it once, and I’m saying it again, the wide options at the club aren’t doing Slot any favours right now. They’re so easily managed. New options are needed.
But nevertheless, Guardiola won the first 45 minutes. Slot was just lucky nobody bothered to tell the players on the pitch, because when the referee blew the whistle to signal the break, the scores remained deadlocked.
In the second half, the landscape kinda flipped. Liverpool played more football with the ball on the ground, Kerkez followed Semenyo like a shadow, Van Dijk largely pocketed Haaland and City’s element of surprise expired.
The Reds won the performance after the interval, but all three goals were just weird. A worldie free-kick, an unfortunate equaliser which consisted of a deflected cross and Dominik Szoboszlai — who isn’t a natural right-back — playing Bernardo onside, and a penalty on the back of a completely random Alisson Becker blunder.
Liverpool now sit on exactly the same number of points as Brentford after 25 matches. Their +5 goal difference is identical, too. You don’t need me to tell you that isn’t good enough, regardless of any holes in your squad. Not for the champions.
While I still believe Slot will probably take charge next season, he really needs to get to grips with the current state of the Premier League. The style shift has fried his brain.
In Europe, the Reds look like genuine contenders to win the Champions League, which feels insane. But in England, Liverpool have won just one of their last seven bouts, drawing four of them and losing two.
With just 13 matches remaining to claw back the gap to Chelsea and Manchester United, the next three months could realistically decide Slot’s future.
It’s a funny one from my perspective. Do I think a new head coach would change much right now? No, not really. Do I think Liverpool can succeed again by fixing the squad and keeping Slot in charge? Yes.
But at the same time, whether he as an individual is the problem or not, he can’t afford to let the season fizzle out. The Reds have quietly improved over the winter period, but that upwards trajectory has to persist, and — with the final stretch approaching — it has to be visible in the form table.
I don’t think Liverpool deserved to lose on the weekend. But as has been the case throughout the entire campaign on Merseyside, when it rains, it really does pour. Not only did the home side blow a 1-0 lead with just six minutes left on the clock, they ended up losing and got their best player sent off. If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.
So do I feel better after writing this? Probably not. But hopefully you do. Stick together and hang in there.
Our wide players aren’t doing him any favours and yet he refuses to bring Ngumoha on yet again.
Most of our players looked knackered at 75 mins but he didn’t change anything until 85.
I don’t care how ‘weak’ the bench looks. We have full international footballers who can run, and young international footballers who can run, yet we would rather run our best players into the ground than utilise the squad we do have.
He is simply not getting the best outcomes from the footballers at his disposal.
After a few weeks of boring solidity that left us unbeaten but not winning, he seems to have decided he has to go back to basketball matches as at least we won some of them early in the season and nobody complained they were bored.
Forget top 5. There is a very real chance we won’t finish top 10. 24pts from our last 20 league games. Does anyone really fancy us to beat Sunderland, West Ham and Forest in the next 3? What’s going to change to bring wins in all 3 matches? Even 7pts feels unlikely.
I have great sympathy for the profiles issue, and the fitness issues. I totally get he has been dealt a shitty hand this season and this was going to be tough after the summer tragedy.
None of that frankly justifies 24pts in 20 games. That’s worse than any run Brendan Rodgers ever had.
You have to use all the players at your disposal to maximise your chances of winning football matches. Treating multiple players like they only exist when you are in desperate panic mode is doing nobody any favours.
Josh — hope you feel better for having written the article. It definitely helps make sense of the first half.
Candidly, I don’t think we deserved to lose. But we’re at a point where how people interpret the game depends on whether they’re looking at it from a half-full or half-empty perspective.
What concerns me more is the speed at which we conceded the two goals. We did well to keep our composure despite being outplayed in the first half, and it felt like our luck had turned after Ali’s walkabout early in the second half. But as soon as we conceded the first goal, our decision-making deteriorated rapidly.
As you say, there’s clear underlying improvement in how we’ve played over the past month. But psychologically, I think there are deeper issues we still haven’t resolved.