Brendan Rodgers got his tactics absolutely spot on, when Liverpool played on Sunday afternoon. The team demonstrated energetic pressing, overloading of the midfield and a willingness to run into space which were all key features of Liverpool’s victory.
“It was United’s ground, mostly their fans but it was our ball” – Brendan Rodgers
You could see from the very first whistle the way in which Liverpool pushed high up on Manchester United, giving them hardly any time to settle on the ball. I have to praise both Joe Allen and John Flanagan as they led the way with their pressing, crunching into tackles high up the pitch and in doing so giving the Reds the initiative.
Steven Gerrard in particular was first to the ball whenever it was there to be won. The high intensity pressing to get the ball was very pleasing to witness first hand as the whole team went about Manchester United in such a manner.
Of course Brendan Rodgers has been trying to implement such aggression without the ball into his team since he joined the club in 2012. The players are now more confident in what is being asked of them and more importantly, seeing that it actually works. It is through this belief in what Brendan wants to achieve at Liverpool that it one of the many reasons why we have seen such a vast improvement in our Premier League campaign.
The team’s performance also emphasised the contribution that Luis Suarez, Raheem Sterling and Daniel Sturridge made when they actually had the ball. The three of them had the tenacity and most of all the desire to penetrate at every given opportunity. Whether it was dribbling with the ball towards goal or finding a killer pass to stretch the play.
A prime example of this aggression with the ball when Daniel Sturridge cleverly switched the play from right to left with a cross field ball to find Suarez who danced his way through and won the penalty of Rafael’s arm in the penalty area. Interestingly Brendan set out the team in 4-1-2-1-2 (diamond) formation (majority of managers who visit Old Trafford play 4-5-1 to try and nullify Manchester United) it was the same system that Brendan employed down at St Mary’s when the Reds played Southampton.
As you can see from the diagram below (www.eplindex.com/tacticsboard)
Rodgers has shown throughout the season that he is tactically flexible and not afraid to move players around within the formation, I must admit his decision to employ Sterling at the tip of the diamond was a shrewd move, believing that the Manchester United centre-backs would drop off and leave the space in front of them for Raheem to run into.
“I wanted to play and have superiority on the inside. I like to flood numbers around the middle of the field in order to control and dominate the game”. – Brendan Rodgers
This would explain why Coutinho was on the substitute’s bench.
One of the main reasons why the diamond formation was used was to give Liverpool a foothold in the midfield area (after all this is where match is ultimately won) David Moyes only started Marouane Fellaini and Michael Carrick in the middle of their midfield this meant it was 4 v 2 and such an overloading of players in the area explained why we dominated and overpowered Manchester United.
Gerrard sat at the base, Sterling at the top and Joe Allen and Jordan Henderson in between and on the sides. Rodgers was keen to highlight at the end of match in his post-match press conference the importance of the contributions Henderson and Allen made as they worked very hard to shift across and block the space whenever Manchester United had the ball.
The attacking trio of Suarez, Sturridge and Sterling were keen throughout the match to run beyond United’s defensive line. However Rooney and Van Persie were the complete opposite often both of them were facing the play whereas our three had their heads towards goal and playing on the shoulder, Sturridge especially.
Liverpool can no longer be associated as a possession based team or counter-attacking team – what we are becoming is a side that have a range of tactics but all strengthened by the same philosophy. A philosophy that is marked by attacking and defending together in a pack like “animals without the ball”
I am sure when the Reds face Cardiff on Saturday, Brendan will have worked on a completely different tactical plan to meet the needs required to beat the Bluebirds. Hopefully another away victory will be secured.
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Great win for LFC. But not because we were so great, instead Man Utd was too terribly poor to be called as a football team. I have feeling that we will win all remaining matches due to SaS goals and rival own problems.
Great article Katie, I have to say – I really enjoyed the tactical breakdown of that ‘diamond’ that everybody has been talking about lately.