Liverpool and the Heel of Achilles

Liverpool suffered their first defeat of the Arne Slot era on Saturday. What happened?

Well that wasn’t very good, was it? What many supporters expected to be a cakewalk ended up being a bit of a disaster on Saturday afternoon, with Nottingham Forest picking up a shock win at Anfield.

Lots of takes have emerged since Liverpool lost by a goal to nil. Some of them have been overly emotional — as always — but a fair amount of them have been on the money.

So what happened, and is now the time to worry?

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So first of all, Liverpool deserved nothing from this game. Results can just happen in a low-scoring sport like football, so we prefer to focus on performances on this Substack.

Sometimes, a team can lose despite deserving to win. When that happens, it’s really easy to advise calmness, but in this case, the Reds were just largely terrible from start to finish.

Liverpool posted 14 shots worth about 0.9 xG from 70 per cent possession. In other words, Arne Slot’s men created nothing of note. For context, the home side generated 0.9 xG or less on just three occasions in the Premier League last term. Away to Arsenal, Manchester City and Newcastle United, with the latter bout involving a Virgil van Dijk red card after half an hour.

Forest weren’t incredible. They only created five shots worth a grand total of 0.4 xG themselves. In a predictable world, this one probably would have resulted in a draw. The strike that wins the game doesn’t usually go in, it was just expertly placed by Callum Hudson-Odoi.

Nevertheless, their game plan worked a treat. It was about containing Liverpool for an hour before introducing speed. Nuno Espírito Santo brought on Hudson-Odoi and Anthony Elanga to start exploiting our tired legs, and ten minutes later, the latter assisted the former.

There’s your managerial influence.

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But that begs the question, if Espírito Santo passed the exam, did Slot fail? How much of what we witnessed is on the Dutchman’s head? It’s an important one to think about, because it took about ten minutes after the match ended before Paul Merson started reminiscing about the glory days of Jürgen Klopp on Sky Sports. Don’t fall into that trap.

So I feel like I’m at risk of going against the grain on this, but I really don’t think the game wouldv’e been that different if Klopp was in charge. Liverpool struggled to break down blocks under him, don’t forget that.

The Reds thrived in transition under the previous manager, and Forest didn’t really concede any of those. In fact, goalkeeper Matz Sels hit all 30 of his attempted passes longer than 30 yards. Pure pragmatism.

Liverpool perhaps focused a bit too much on containing Forest and not enough on creating chances, which likely wouldn’t have been the case last season, but this display seemed to consist of every single player in red dropping below his typical standard.

“We lost the ball so many times in simple situations,” said Slot after the clash. “That is the story of the game." Indeed, Liverpool’s right side in particular — which is usually so reliable — seemed miles below par.

Trent Alexander-Arnold only completed 69 per cent of his passes, which does happen often, but Mohamed Salah also dropped below 70 per cent, and Dominik Szoboszlai only posted 75 per cent as a midfielder. Harvey Elliott and Federico Chiesa are the backup options for that side, but neither of them made the squad due to fitness.

Ultimately, when your best player just keeps giving the ball to the opposition for no reason, what exactly can you do as a manager except make substitutions?

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On the other hand, Slot can be held accountable for some aspects. Last week, in this mailbag post, I got asked about the downsides of our new playing style, and this was my response:

Above all, I’m very intrigued to see how Liverpool cope when they concede first. We haven’t saw evidence of that yet. Keeping control and exhibiting patience is easy when you’re in command of the result. But when your opponents have no reason to press, things will get a little harder.

When Liverpool eventually have to chase a game, will they revert to their old habits by forcing the issue and consequently conceding too many counter-attacks? Let’s see.

Well, we saw, and it was ugly. Forest refused to press from the first whistle, they opted against building from the back — thus negating Liverpool’s high press — and they managed to score the opening goal.

The whole enticing the opposition into pressing thing won’t work against certain opponents, and in those games, you’ll have to find an alternative means of generating space.

“We had the ball a lot, and we had to create from possession,” said Slot on the weekend. “If you look at the goals we’ve scored until now, we’ve scored quite a few from transition moments, from winning the ball back. But the other team [Forest] played over our press a lot, with a lot of long balls.”

All of the patience that Liverpool have been striving to acquire seemed to fly out of the window once Forest scored. Slot has since been criticised for adopting what looked like a mad offensive shape for the final 20 minutes, but the players on the pitch kinda made it look mad.

It was just 3-2-5 if you want to use numbers, but it ended up looking like a 3-just-vibes because possession was never under control. As expected, the Reds started to force the issue with long balls, crosses, silly decisions and rushed actions.

Later on, the back three consisted of Van Dijk, Conor Bradley and Kostas Tsimikas, with Alexander-Arnold in midfield next to Ryan Gravenberch, which admittedly does sound a little nuts.

But 3-2-5 with Alexander-Arnold next to Gravenberch sometimes happens on a normal week, it’s just not usually employed to defend and attack. It tends to be exclusively used when Liverpool have possession secured, which is why our hurried attacks ended up hurting us towards the end.

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Moving forward, it’s going to be interesting. Liverpool should play better purely because their individuals should return to their usual standard, but there are some tactical kinks for Slot to iron out, for sure.

Some opponents won’t press high, so how do you open them up? Some opponents won’t play short from their goalkeeper, so how do you create chances if you can’t rely on high turnovers? Some opponents will score first, so how do you turn up the heat without losing control of the game?

All of those elements are repairable on the training ground. Slot just needs time with his players, and Liverpool need to experience these scenarios under their new boss to improve and eventually conquer them.

For now, I’m going to view this one as a blip. I don’t think it’s a sign of things to come, but Slot will need to teach his players about the answers ahead of future tests.

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There’s a story in Greek mythology involving Achilles — a great warrior — and his mother. When he was just an infant, she dipped him into the River Styx to make him invulnerable, but she held him by his heel to do so.

That heel did not touch the water, and thus, it became the most vulnerable part of his anatomy. His biggest weakness. Achilles later died having been shot, with his killer firing an arrow into — yep, you guessed it — his heel.

Liverpool were pretty complete under Klopp. But if they had a weakness, it was breaking down brick walls with possession. The Reds hated passive defensive blocks under the previous manager. And guess what? They still hate them now.