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Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images
After the Reds put a second half thumping on the German champions, we dig into some of the winners and losers on the night.
After an uninspiring first half that lived up to the expectation of two control-focused managers attempting to out-tactic each other, Liverpool drew first blood and subsequently gutted Bayer Leverkusen in a transition-heavy second half at Anfield, running out 4-0 winners and taking them to the top of the Champions League table.
We have some gripes with this Reds team: their base press is too narrow and their first line gets bypassed too easily; their base build-up play under pressure is too static and the long balls from the back are too often hit into attackers who are outnumbered and outmuscled; they often start games too slowly.
They win, though. All the time. Just about every single week, in fact. Arne Slot has shown a real penchant for second-half adjustments, and as an opponent you cannot, under any circumstance, let this Liverpool side run at you in transition. As soon as Luis Díaz notched his first of the night and the visitors began pushing up in numbers to pull one back, the spaces opened up, and so did the floodgates.
With all that said, then, we provide a quick word on the winners and losers on the night.
Winners
Lucho: Listen, when you score your first hat-trick for the club in front of the Kop on another famous European night at Anfield, you get in the Winners column. Luis Díaz had momentum tonight, and while his first goal was gorgeous, a perfect chip over the head of Lukas Hradecky, the second was gritty, shrugging off Jonas Hofmann to squeeze the ball through the narrowest of gaps between Edmond Tapsoba’s legs, and the third had more than a little fortune about it, tucking home a no-look Roberto Firmino tribute after a blocked Darwin Núñez effort fell directly into his feet.
With his 7th, 8th and 9th goal of the season scored tonight, the Colombian is already just four goals away from equaling his best ever goalscoring season in Liverpool Red, and given just how things seem to be falling for him at the moment, only a fool would bet against him comfortably breaking that number this year.
Prince of Egypt: We’re gonna keep banging the drum until he leaves or stops scoring, cos Mohamed Salah is playing some of the best football of his career right now. With another two assists tonight, the first of which was a gorgeous first-time cross with his swinger to pick out Cody Gakpo at the back post, the Egyptian took his tally to nine goals and nine assists, three months into the season.
It’s a preposterous return — 1.3 goals and assists per 90 minutes of football — and one that would make it extremely easy to defend just about any contract upper management decides to put in front of the man, date of birth be damned.
Losers
Xabi: He reportedly took himself out of the running for the Liverpool job early in the process after Jürgen Klopp announced his departure last year, despite being most fans’ clear first choice to take the reins, and Xabi Alonso’s official return to Anfield tonight, for the first time in 15 years, began with a warm welcome and ended in a legitimate humbling.
For an hour, Bayer Leverkusen didn’t play poorly at all. In fact, the argument could be made that they had the better of the game in the first half, pressing the hosts high up the pitch to prevent them from building anything of substance, and putting together impressive strings of possession themselves, without really creating anything clear cut in the process.
Once they dropped off just a little bit, though, they were pressed, then punished, and chasing the game against this Liverpool side must be done in a measured, respectful way, or they will have your pants down in no time at all.
Until next time, Xabi. YNWA.
Tactical Tidbits
Three months into the project, if you feel like Arne Slot’s Liverpool are slow starters and strong finishers, you are absolutely correct. The Reds generate, on average, 0.78 expected goals in the first half this season, and increase that number by 83% in the second. In fact, they match their entire first half average in the opening 15 minutes of the second half alone.
It is a testament to Slot’s ability to make adjustments in-game — and especially at half-time — that address what the opposition is doing, and it was more of the same tonight. Trent Alexander-Arnold had barely found a team-mate, much less Curtis Jones, in the first half at all, but in start of the second half, the two Scousers connected multiple times in what should have set off alarm bells in the German camp, before they combined to unlock the visitors’ back line for the opener.
Curtis Jones dropped in between the lines just as Trent received the ball in the deep half-space, and with Bayer’s double pivot failing to pick him up and the back three hesitating to chase him, turned and slotted a perfect through ball into the run of Luis Díaz, who finished with aplomb. It was excruciatingly pretty, and, perhaps more noteworthy, appeared shockingly simple, after the Reds had struggled to create much of anything in the opening stanza.
What Happens Next
The last game of this run of fixtures comes on Saturday, as Liverpool play host to a sixth-placed Aston Villa side that are chasing a second consecutive Champions League qualification. Then, it’s international break time, which the Reds will hope to go into still at the top of every available table.
