Make Crossing Cool Again
Arne Slot is calling upon an old favourite.
There’s one specific cliché that commentators just love to use when they’re witnessing a relatively uncompetitive affair. It tends to surface whenever one team truly dominates another.
Indeed, we heard the classic line uttered as Liverpool faced Ipswich Town on the weekend. “This is like a training game,” said one exhausted commentator — whose name I can’t remember — as the Reds refused to let their opponents escape their own defensive third for 90 minutes.
Well, Arne Slot’s men have played a few training games of late. And they aren’t always easy to navigate. I’m talking about attack versus defence. I’m talking about coming up against the dreaded low block.
The entire contest against Ipswich took place in the final third. Liverpool didn’t face a single shot until the hour mark, with Kieran McKenna’s men mustering just three efforts in total.
A possession share of 71 per cent alongside the creation of 13 shots more than your opponents is how to win the Premier League. That’s how you keep jeopardy under wraps. That’s how you stamp out the element of chance.
But we faced a similar block of 11 players against Brentford last week. I wrote about that here. Liverpool generated 37 shots, yet only managed to score the opening goal of the game with effort number 36, just five minutes before the final whistle.
The Reds have gone about breaking down their opponents in similar ways across each low-block scenario. Below, you’ll see an example of how the landscape tends to look. I’ve highlighted Liverpool’s back four in each game to emphasise my point.
Slot almost wants to establish that dynamic of attack versus defence. His back four squeezes the pitch by advancing as high as possible. That’s what happens when your opponents are reluctant to press high due to the fear of getting opened up.
Against the likes of Ipswich, Brentford, Nottingham Forest — and even Manchester United — about 66 per cent of the pitch kinda didn’t exist, when you think about it. It’s all about that final third, and whether you’re good enough to create within such confined spaces without conceding too many counter-attacks.
I touched on Liverpool’s weaponry when facing low blocks in this piece just after Christmas. Back then, Slot’s outfit had just won another training game of sorts against Leicester City, thanks to Alexis Mac Allister and his runs from deep.
I mentioned crossing in that piece, and since, it feels like Liverpool have used the same selection of crosses more and more in their attempts to break down deep-lying defences.
The emergence of persistent crossing towards the back post explains why Cody Gakpo has thrived of late — becoming more of a prominent figure for Slot — with Luis Díaz forced to get minutes elsewhere.
Gakpo is excellent at cutting inside and delivering pinpoint crosses towards the back stick. But he’s also pretty good at being on the receiving end of them, too, given his athletic frame as a 6-foot-4 high jumper who never quite made it to the Olympics.
With Gakpo on the pitch against low-block defences, Liverpool essentially possess the same cross from both flanks, which is pretty cool. Mohamed Salah is great at finding the back post with crosses from the right. And now Slot has Gakpo doing the same from the left.
The two goals from crosses that Liverpool scored against Ipswich came straight from Slot’s tactics board, no doubt about it. They were premeditated, and you will see them again this season. I’ll even take a stab at picking a game for you. Everton, Goodison Park, 12th February.
I’m generalising here, but I see six crosses attached to Liverpool’s attack whenever the Reds are taking part in these artificial training sessions against opponents who exist to not concede.
Gakpo’s lofted cross towards the back post
Salah’s lofted cross towards the back post
Andy Robertson’s whipped cross towards the penalty spot
Trent Alexander-Arnold’s whipped cross towards the penalty spot
Robertson’s cutback — or low cross — towards the penalty spot
Alexander-Arnold’s cutback — or low cross — towards the penalty spot
We know crossing isn’t an ideal means of creating shots. You tend to score once every 45 crosses. In fact, crossing has generally been on the decline for about a decade, it hasn’t been cool since Damien Comolli tried to build a team around the supernatural heading ability of Andy Carroll. You can read all about that in my book. Buy loads of copies.
But the players at Anfield are pretty good at getting their deliveries right. They keep manifesting the same favourable situations, too. And when facing low blocks, you’ll always have to rely on low-quality chances to some extent. It’s all about how you finish them.
I like what the Reds are doing. It’s not aimless. It’s not random. It’s not a hit-and-hope approach the firing the ball into the penalty box, no. These are calculated attacks, patterns. There’s a blueprint.
Liverpool will need to keep refining their low-block weapons. Because as they keep improving and establishing themselves as the best around, more and more sides are going to be willing to settle for a point at Anfield.
Crossing isn’t considered to be smart anymore. It is suboptimal, you could argue. But right now, Liverpool have a multitude of providers, all operating from different spaces while exploring different angles and trajectories with their deliveries.
Pretty cool, if you ask me.
Bugs me a little when I see people decrying crosses. The ones to Cody and Mo to each other have been particularly profitable, just like the ones to the back (left stick) from Henderson to Mané used to be.
Notable that Robertson's crossing, from set pieces and open play, like nearly all aspects of his game, is rapidly declining in quality.
No clue if the data bears this out, but I think Arsenal are also increasingly scoring from open play crosses as well