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2nd February 2011 : Liverpool 2-0 Stoke City

Pre-match

A few eyebrows were raised when the team news came in from Anfield that Liverpool were to line up with three central defenders. More questions were asked when it emerged that manager Kenny Dalgish was to play Dirk Kuyt up front on his own. But not for the first time this season, Dalglish and assistant Steve Clarke were absolutely vindicated.

Of course, the right tactical approach does not necessarily guarantee the win. But it does make things a hell of a lot easier.

By now it is no secret that Stoke City’s main threat comes from set-pieces – corners, free kicks and, of course, the infamous Rory Delap throw in. Last season at the Britannia Stoke equalised in the dying moments from a corner kick, denying the Reds a hard-fought three points. Stoke’s height and movement at set plays was something Liverpool could not deal with.

Rafa Benitez had actually picked a similar side to Kenny that day – press reports that Liverpool had lined up with six defenders on the field were not that far exaggerated. Emiliano Insua and Fabio Aurelio patrolled the left flank, with Jamie Carragher and Philipp Degen on the right. Sotirios Kyrgiakos and Martin Skrtel provided strength and aerial presence in the centre. Despite the apparent negativity, Liverpool were thirty seconds away from getting all three points. Dalglish and Clarke may well have learned the right lessons from that day and tried to avoid the same mistakes.

First half

Liverpool lined up in a 3-4-2-1 formation in a similar vein to Napoli this season in Serie A. The defensive trio – Daniel Agger, Kyrgiakos and Skrtel – were well balanced and provided the perfect adversaries to debut-boy John Carew in the Stoke attack. In the centre, Kyrgiakos provided height and strength, Skrtel the mobility and Agger the ability to play the ball out of defence and restart attacks. This meant no place for Jamie Carragher, although his recent injury lay-off may have led Dalglish to rest him for such a physical encounter.

The message was clear. Just like Benitez, Dalglish was determined to nullify City’s aerial threat and physicality. As a counter, Liverpool would overload the centre of the pitch and dominate possession – hopefully made even more effective by the use of Agger as a modern-day libero.

Martin Kelly and Glen Johnson (once again playing on the left) remained to patrol the flanks as wing backs. Defenders when Liverpool lost possession, they were free to bomb forward once the team went back on the attack.

The most interesting part was the behaviour of the four midfeilders. From looking at the team sheet before the game, most pundits expected that either Gerrard or Meireles would act as the second-striker. Alternatively, they could line up in a diamond (much like Chelsea in Ancelotti’s early days), or, as Napoli have been doing, line up with two holding midfielders and two attacking midfielders.

Dalglish chose the latter – Aurelio played deepest, with Lucas just ahead of him, heavily pressing the Stoke midfield. Both were then able to cover either Johnson or Kelly when they committed themselves forward. This allowed Steven Gerrard and Raul Meireles to attack freely whenever Liverpool had the ball. The chalkboards show just how much they were able to pass the ball to teammates in Stoke’s half of the field.

Kuyt’s role as lone-forward-cum-target-man was played almost perfectly. Considering the reservations many had before the game, the only thing his performance lacked was a goal. His work rate and effort saw him range all over the Stoke half, as shown by his passing and tackling chalk boards.

His passes were mostly flick-ons, sideways and backwards passes for the players around him or those who had run on ahead of him. Playing with his back to goal for most of the match, he was able to hold the ball up and lay it off to a team mate before moving into space. Only three of his 37 passes were attempted within the opposition penalty area, showing that he was not the spearhead of the attack but rather the engine room up front creating opportunities for his team mates.

In the tackling department, Kuyt won an impressive 9 out of 13 challenges. Considering he was nominally the centre forward, that’s not a bad return. The distribution on the chalk board also shows how far he was tracking back and how he did not confine himself to the centre of the field.

Stoke’s gameplan was clear from the outset – two banks of four supplemented by Walters tracking back to form a 4-5-1 in defence and a 4-4-1-1 in attack. Their passing was, to put it charitably, “direct”. Carew was the obvious target man, receiving high balls as Walters and Pennant attempted to get close enough to him to receive the knock-down. Unsurprisingly, this was either designed to batter through Liverpool’s defence or to force Liverpool to concede corners, deep throws and free kicks.

But that doesn’t mean that Stoke were content to “park the bus” when they didn’t have the ball. They pressed high up the pitch for most of the game, attempting almost as many tackles as the home team (winning about 48% of them).

For the first half an hour or so, the Liverpool players performed their individual roles well, but there was a lack of cohesion and rhythm to their play. This was due to three main issues: a) the team had clearly never played this formation in a competitive match before and were obviously uncomfortable doing so; b) having three central defenders provided excellent coverage but left the team short-manned in attack; and c) Stoke performed well, pressing Liverpool and denying them the space they needed to keep the ball and get their rhythm going.

In the past six years, Liverpool have only ever played something resembling a five-man defence once; an away match at Pompey in 08/09 in which they won 3-2. A system with three central defenders is excellent against sides with two men up front. Both can be marked while the free player can mop up any mistakes.

Dalglish’s use of Aurelio in the midfield added more defensive cover to the team, and was advantageous because he is a much better ball-player than Christian Poulsen. But with Stoke lining up 4-5-1, Liverpool had two spare men at the back and were covered man-for-man in the midfield. This meant that Gerrard and Meireles were forced deep to receive the ball and Kuyt became increasingly isolated.

Liverpool were obviously having to play much deeper and narrower than they would have hoped. To work well, the system requires the wing backs to provide attacking width. Neither Johnson nor Kelly was able to do this. Johnson, on his weaker side, naturally came into the centre of the field to get onto his stronger right foot. Kelly, meanwhile, is more a full back than a wing-back – and clearly not suited to this new role. The result was that a total of seven players from both teams were crammed into the inside-left zone of the pitch. Unsurprisingly, that isn’t conducive to open, attacking football.

As Liverpool got frustrated they got sloppy. Crosses were flying in from all over the field whenever an attacker looked like they were getting into the penalty area. Of all the teams in the Premier League, Stoke are probably the last you would try this against. Consistently out-manned and out-muscled in the penalty area, possession was conceded time and again. Nine crosses missed their targets in the first half alone – 15 were attempted in the entire match, of which only two were successful.

On the plus side, the defensive element of Kenny’s game plan worked a treat. Stoke managed just one shot on target in the first half an hour, and there was no significant set-piece threat; there were no corners or free kicks, and no “Delap specials”. (Though perhaps the fact that Delap wasn’t on the field at the time helped on that score).

Despite this positive, it was clear that something needed to change. For the last ten minutes before half time Johnson and Kelly were pushed much wider than they had been before and were getting forward more often. Agger and Skrtel pushed out towards the wings to provide more defensive width, and both were able to step into the midfield once the team regained the football.

Kyrgiakos, meanwhile, became more of a sweeper, covering the space in behind his team mates but at all times man-marking Carew to prevent him doing anything with the ball. He finished the match with 7 out of 10 successful tackles, an interception and three successful clearances out of six – all of them in or just outside the penalty area.

Aurelio and Lucas were also pushed wider and encouraged to get out of their own half when the opportunity presented itself. But the most significant change lay in the attacking midfielders – Gerrard and Meireles – who both supported Kuyt far more effectively than they had done in the opening exchanges.

This created openings, with Johnson’s header on 36 minutes and Gerrard’s opportunity to get a shot off in the penalty area. Finally, Liverpool were able to play in between Stoke’s lines, especially in the gap between the midfield and defence.

Second Half

The second half continued as the first had ended. When the Reds finally broke through from a set piece, they were able to become more patient with the football. Their passing game forced Stoke to come forward more to try and regain possession which created more space.

Pulis left his major changes late. In the last 20 minutes, Stoke moved to a 4-2-4 with Carew and Fuller up front and Pennant and Walters in advanced positions on the flanks (though Walters played more centrally than a true “winger”, dropping deep to support the midfield when required). Delap and Whitehead covered the middle of the park after Fuller replaced Wilson and Delap came on for Diao. No longer did Stoke have two anchor men – such as thing playing in Liverpool’s attacking midfielders hands.

Liverpool started to look more comfortable again only when Suarez came on for Aurelio. This changed Liverpool’s shape to a 3-4-1-2. Kuyt dropped deeper and Suarez took his place, becoming the spearhead of the attack. With Stoke committing more men forward, they were left with only two central midfielders; a situation Liverpool were able to exploit with the extra man. As the game got stretched it was no surprise that Suarez was able to get Liverpool’s second after a brilliant through ball by Kuyt (aided in no small part by Stoke’s pathetic attempt at playing the offside trap).

Gerrard was now playing deeper alongside Lucas, while Meireles slotted into the hole behind the two strikers. When Shelvey replaced the Portuguese midfielder, Liverpool changed shape again to a pure 5-3-2 in an attempt to see the game out, just before Suarez scored his debut goal.

It is worth noting that Stoke didn’t seem to put Liverpool under any great, sustained pressure, even after Liverpool’s first goal. Whether this was because Pulis rested Kenwyne Jones and Matthew Etherington for the game against Sunderland or not, there Reina was only called into action once, pulling off a great save.

Post-match

Once again, Dalglish has proven himself a tactically flexible and adaptable manager. Clarke has had a hand in this, but a great general has the skill to appoint the right lieutenants. Those pundits who thought his absence from the game in recent years would prove a stumbling block must be reassessing their opinions now.

The fact that Stoke didn’t manage to win a single corner or dangerous free kick shows how the players executed Dalglish’s plan to perfection. In recent years, there has not been  a single match against Stoke, home or away, where The Potters have been so unable to pressurise Liverpool in any meaningful way.

After the slow start to the match, Liverpool’s players did enough to secure the win, even if it wasn’t their most spectacular performance. Three wins on the bounce now for the new manager, Reina’s third consecutive clean sheet and – perhaps most importantly of all – one of the big January signings has put the pressure of his first goal behind him. Surely more is to come from Suarez and, in the not too distant future, from Andy Carroll too.