The remaining tension has almost been put to bed. Liverpool comfortably defeated the Premier League title winners of the last four seasons, Manchester City, to move 11 points clear of their nearest challengers, Arsenal — albeit having played a game more. At this rate, the title will be secured by the time Arsenal travel to Anfield in May.
City might not be the force of old, but it was nevertheless a symbolic victory for Liverpool, especially considering Arne Slot’s tactical approach. For all the talk that Liverpool’s title rivals Arsenal have lacked a No 9 this season, Slot decided to play without a recognised centre-forward at the Etihad, and it worked excellently.
Liverpool’s setup looked like a 4-2-4 in possession, with Curtis Jones and Dominik Szoboszlai playing centrally in the front four.
They looked almost like a 4-2-4-0 when pressing, with the wingers pushing high and the makeshift forwards dropping back into the midfield zone.
Granted, “4-2-4-0” looks like a daft notation of the system, but if we accept the basis of a 4-2-3-1, and you remove the striker and add a second attacking midfielder, that’s what you get. Liverpool’s “front two” were midfielders by trade, and they were concerned with stopping the opposition midfielders.
And, as ever, playing without a recognised centre-forward caused problems between the lines, forcing City’s defenders to jump out from the back. Here’s the midfield situation — Jones was often the spare man, leaving Abdukodir Khusanov to move forward and close him down.
But, importantly, Jones and Szoboszlai became ‘proper’ strikers too. When Trent Alexander-Arnold overlapped into a good position here, Jones was at the near post coming short for a cutback, and Szoboszlai was making a far-post run for a tap-in. In the end, Alexander-Arnold’s ball was played between the two and cleared.
Liverpool opened the scoring through a well-worked corner routine, finished by Mohamed Salah.
But in terms of the system, the second goal was the most telling move of the first half. When Alexander-Arnold knocks the ball down the line towards Salah, City’s two midfielders, Nico Gonzalez and Kevin De Bruyne, are mainly concerned with Liverpool’s two deeper midfielders, Alexis Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch.
When the ball is played past them, and Salah collects it, City’s midfield duo are nowhere to be seen. Jones and Szoboszlai are both free in oceans of space between the lines. Are they the responsibility of the centre-backs? If so, they can’t really move out from defence and close them down here.
Salah played in Szoboszlai…
… and, with Nico too late to close down the shot, Szoboszlai fired home.
The funny thing was that Manchester City, without Erling Haaland, were actually trying something similar — and at times, it seemed set to cause Liverpool serious problems. With Phil Foden leading the line and coming short, and Omar Marmoush also floating around then running in behind, Virgil van Dijk was told by Slot to follow Foden into midfield. The space was in Liverpool’s left-centre channel, where Van Dijk had moved out of position.
At times, Van Dijk actually moved forward in advance of Liverpool’s deep midfielders.
On other occasions, he got too tight and fouled Foden.
Liverpool tried to fix this problem by moving Mac Allister deeper, onto Foden, allowing Van Dijk to remain in his position.
But Foden re-positioned himself intelligently, and this move for a Marmoush ‘goal’ disallowed for offside was very interesting. Rico Lewis played the ball into Foden. Van Dijk was too late to intercept, and Foden knocked the ball past him. Marmoush positioned himself in the space created by Van Dijk jumping forward.
Marmoush received the pass and ran in behind to finish — but Ibrahima Konate had stepped up and played him offside. Still, the theory behind the move was excellent: dragging out a centre-back, and bursting into the space created.
Since we’ve looked at a City offside goal, we may as well do the same for a Liverpool offside goal. The move here was very similar. With City’s two central midfielders again concentrating on Liverpool’s deep midfielders, there’s a huge amount of space between the lines. Szoboszlai was free to receive a pass.
Just as Van Dijk was jumping up onto Foden, here Nathan Ake jumps forward onto Szoboszlai. The Hungarian plays the ball to Gravenberch — who is now free as Nico is moving towards the ball. Szoboszlai spots that Ake has moved forward, and runs around him and into the space created. Gravenberch, after a miscontrol, plays the ball in behind for him.
Szoboszlai squares for a Jones tap-in. This time, it took the VAR to adjudge the move was offside — but again, the logic behind the move was spot on.
We often speak about the issue caused by strikerless systems — it gives the centre-backs no one to mark, which causes them positional problems. But it should be acknowledged that there’s a benefit for a centre-back having no one to mark — they can act as the spare man, and sweep up behind the full-backs to stop the wingers. The beneficiary of this was Khusanov, who repeatedly made crucial last-ditch challenges. If Liverpool had a centre-forward here, Khusanov might not have been able to stop Salah, after he had broken past Ake.
Khusanov might not have been able to focus on chasing down Luis Diaz here.
And Khusanov might not have been able to sprint across and block a shot from Szoboszlai after Salah had slipped in the Hungarian.
But, in all, this was a good advert for playing without a recognised centre-forward. Liverpool’s approach created an overload in midfield, exploited space between the lines, and kept them compact without possession too.
Liverpool’s next fixture is on Wednesday night against Newcastle United, a team who dominate the midfield zone but leave space between the lines because of the fluidity of their midfield trio, and play with physical centre-backs who defend crosses well. A similar type of system makes sense. Besides, for all Haaland’s goals over the past couple of seasons, there is minimal evidence that big sides look better with a proper No 9.
(Top photo: Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
