Digging Deeper Into Liverpool's 3-0 Victory Over Bournemouth
Today at 03:50 PM
With a victory over Bournemouth in the books, we take a closer look at what it all means for the Reds.
Liverpool manage to get back to winning ways in the league, righting the ship after their loss last weekend to Nottingham Forest with wins in the Champions League mid-week and, now, against Bournemouth at Anfield. It was a dominant and efficient display with the Reds putting the match out of reach before the first frame expired. An important result with Liverpool nearly halfway through their run of seven matches in three weeks.
Winners and Losers
Winners
Luis Diaz Lucho continues his terrific form bagging a brace within the span of two minutes, which itself came on the back of a typical performance from the Colombian winger: loads of pace and trickery, flashes of danger, and, on occasion, frustratingly opting to take a shot in stead of playing one of his teammates in. For all the talk of the Gakp-enaissance, it's hard to argue that anyone but Díaz is the clear first-choice on the left.
Darwin Nuñez Everyone's favorite Uruguayan got his first start of the season and promptly put in an exquisite strike, curling a ball so perfectly as to kiss the post and into the goal, all with his weak foot. He also was in position for more than his fair share of tap-ins, if his teammates (including the aforementioned Díaz) would have been able to get him the ball.
Losers
Squad Rotation Yes, we did see Robbo come back into the squad after being rotated out but the other two changes on the day - Nuñez for Diogo Jota (who was able to make the bench, though) and Caoimhin Kelleher for Alisson Becker - were due to injuries. The midfield three, in particular, remained the consistent as each of Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister, and Domink Szoboszlai all started the day. Again, injuries are a bit of a contributing factor here: Harvey Elliott is injured along with the aforementioned Jota. So options to be able to take Mohamed Salah off weren't there. One last thing to note is that Slot only used three out of the five substitutes. More on the questions related to rotation in the tactics section but with 3 matches in 7 days, one can imagine the legs in midifeld are feeling more than a little stretched.
Talking Tactics
An interesting wrinkle that's different from the run out against Forest is that when Cody Gakpo, Curtis Jones, and Federico Chiesa were brought on, the base formation looked to be a 4-4-2, with Chiesa up top with Mo. In midfield, Gakpo, Jones, Gravenberch and Mac Allister all rotated. I'll need to go back to see what final form the midfield took - Curtis seemed to take up space just behind the strike pair while Gakpo remained wide, so off hand it feels like a lop-sided formation. But it was interesting and did effectively kill the game with an NBC Sports match report noting that Bournemouth only created .23 xG in the second half.
In terms of squad rotation, as mentioned above, injuries certainly explain some of the decisions as some of those who didn't make the matchday squad would likely have been called into action. Harvey Elliott in particular might be the biggest miss given his positional flexibility. Perhaps more telling in terms of decisions, though, is that Slot's bench only held Curtis Jones as a natural midfielder (Joe Gomez can play a defensive screening role in a pinch), with no place for Wataru Endo in the 18. It's an odd situation for the Japan International and it does beg the question as to how differently Slot's deepest-lying midfielders are expected to operate and contribute. Will be interesting to see how this develops moving forward.
Dissecting the Narrative
The buzzword over the last few weeks has been structure and with Liverpool dropping the match to Forest, there were suddenly questions about Slot's architecture. Which didn't make sense to me as, at the time, it looked like Forest did more to stifle LFC's attack than to actually out-create Liverpool. In this match, Liverpool managed to flatten Bournemouth early, but Andoni Iraola's side were much more threatening than Nuno Espiritu's Forest, with the Cherries accumulating approximately 3 times the xG than Forest did last week. An important note, though, that almost all of that was in the first half, as Liverpool managed the match incredibly well - a staple of the early Arne Slot era. Liverpool remain incredibly stingy defensively but the biggest difference this season is really in the area of game management, especially when the club manage to find a go-ahead goal.
What Happens Next
Liverpool have 4 more matches in 14 days, with mid-week tilts in the League Cup and the Champions League to go along with their Premier League matches. Then, it will be another international break. Load management is hopefully a thing because while it's hard to complain about all of this football as a fan, rotation feels an obvious must within these circumstances. Here's hoping we see some over the next two weeks.
