Jamie Carragher admitted he was ‘worried’ following Liverpool’s 2-1 defeat to Manchester United at Old Trafford on Monday night.
It proved to be a lacklustre display from Jurgen Klopp’s men who struggled to deal with the intensity of the home side. Jadon Sancho opened the scoring after just 16 minutes before Marcus Rashford doubled United’s advantage early in the second half.
Liverpool pulled a goal back through Mohamed Salah late on but failed to put Erik ten Hag’s men under any real pressure in the dying moments as they chased an equaliser. Post-match, Carragher stated he felt Liverpool ‘weren’t ready’ for the ferocity of United’s start.
“Today’s a big worry, not losing to Man United it’s a tough place to come, but it was the manner in which they started the game, a derby game, whether it’s Goodison or Old Trafford you know it’s going to be a little bit of needle,” said the Sky Sports pundit.
“Manchester United, it was obvious how they were going to start, they had to start the first 15 minutes like their lives depended on it and they did. It was like Liverpool weren’t ready.” Carragher then went on to discuss his concerns about Liverpool’s high defensive live, a subject that has caused plenty of debate in recent years.
“Every time Liverpool play a game of football, and I know Liverpool have been amazing and they say it’s a thing you’ve got to accept, that someone runs through on goal, but I was a centre-back, and I didn't play on the halfway line the way teams do now, but when someone runs through on your goal every single game something can’t be right. I’ve never thought it was right, it doesn’t happen to Man City.
“So every time Liverpool play a game of football, they get hit on the counter-attack and someone runs through on goal, and it’s just about whether Alisson can save it or not, and tonight he couldn’t.”
The high line has been integral to Liverpool’s game model in recent seasons. Due to the Reds' dominance, many of their opponents retreat into their own defensive half when they are without the ball, aiming to remain compact and with a view of restricting space for Liverpool to exploit.
In response, Liverpool’s central defenders push high to the halfway line, sometimes even beyond it, penning the opposition inside their own half. This means that when Klopp’s side loses the ball, they’re well positioned to counter-press and win it back.
With the defensive line so high, opponents have very little space to try and play their way out and as a result will often be forced to go long, giving possession back to Liverpool to again take control.
It was for a long time accepted that as a consequence of this approach, teams would occasionally beat Liverpool’s offside trap and be presented with a highly valuable goalscoring opportunity.
However, the evidence suggested such chances were pretty regular last season, in fact, too regular. According to the data of goalkeeper analyst @Jhdharrison1, in the league last season, Liverpool faced 56 one-against-one chances. Only three Premier League sides - Norwich, Newcastle and Leeds - faced more.
It’s worth remembering that these teams tended to spend much more time without the ball than Liverpool did. Manchester City are stylistically the most similar to Liverpool, and they faced just 32 such chances.
This problem was masked to an extent by Alisson’s ability in goal. Based on @Jhdharrison1’s one-against-one expected saves model, he overperformed by 8.21 last season, which pretty much indicated he stopped around eight more goals than would have been expected based on his ability in these situations.
While Alisson has the potential to be a goalkeeper that can always perform at an above-average level, any dip in his form could quickly start proving costly to Liverpool if they continue to give up these chances.
You could argue we are already seeing examples of this now. Marcus Rashford converted his one-against-one on Monday night, as did Wilfried Zaha at Anfield last week. Both those goals directly cost Liverpool points.
It now might be time for Klopp to adapt if he wants to avoid this problem becoming a real Achilles heel in the Reds' game.
