Arne Slot's Liverpool have (again) overcome a massive test with a comprehensive 2-0 victory over Man City. And while Pep Guardiola's side did show some signs of improvement, this was a result that never seemed in doubt once Mo Salah and Cody Gakpo combined inside 15 minutes. Adam Clery takes a look at both teams and explains why there are positives on each side.
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00:00I do wonder if anyone at Swindon Town knows they're getting this much free advertising
00:06on YouTube.
00:07I suspect not.
00:08Right, yes, anyway, these were the starting line-ups for Liverpool.
00:11They had Diaz as sort of a central striker, like a false nine, like a quasi-Firmino sort
00:17of figure, which was interesting but wasn't particularly decisive.
00:19And for Manchester City, Ruben Diaz was back.
00:22Now this might be a little bit dry, okay, but I'm going to start with some stats that
00:27will neatly inform the rest of the video, so just try and stay awake.
00:31This is the momentum graph for the entire game, which if you've not seen one before,
00:34I don't really like using them, but they basically measure sort of a combination of possession
00:39and chances and basically who is on the ascendancy and who is not.
00:43You can see Liverpool at the top here, Manchester City on the bottom.
00:46And what you'll be jumping out at you straight away is that Man City offered absolutely nothing
00:51in that first half.
00:52Now they did see, I'll show you now, in the first half, they had almost exactly the same
00:55possession as Liverpool.
00:57They were seeing a lot of the ball, but they were doing absolutely nothing of significance
01:01with it, so they don't really appear on that graph.
01:04But then we look at the numbers for the second half and the pattern of the game completely
01:07changes.
01:08Pep makes a couple of really good substitutions.
01:10They start dominating the ball and yet Liverpool have much higher xG, they have way more bigger
01:16chances.
01:17That was a measure of the control Arnaz Slot had, like they were dominant in the first
01:22half and then they were passive in the second half, but in a controlled way.
01:26But just hang on a second there, Adam, what do you mean by passive in a controlled way?
01:30That sounds like you just made it up on the spot.
01:33And yeah, I did, I did.
01:35Sorry about that.
01:36But basically think about those two Liverpool chances in the second half, the Mo Salah breakaway
01:41and what they get the penalty from.
01:43Those both come from Man City having long spells of possession.
01:46So Liverpool were happy for them to have the ball because they were planning on springing
01:50up the other end as soon as they did.
01:52But what do those incredibly unexciting numbers and my dribble actually mean in the context
01:57of the game?
01:58Well, first off, the City looked to be on the men.
02:01They were controlling parts of the game the way we expect them to, and they weren't getting
02:04carved open at will by Liverpool.
02:07And they did this in two, that's three, two different ways.
02:11First off, Ruben Diaz is back, who makes an absolutely enormous difference.
02:15I know everyone is focusing on Rodri and him not being there, but I personally think Diaz
02:21is as much, if not nearly quite the same, as big a miss.
02:25Like if you just have a quick look at his FB ref stats from the last year, like the
02:29guy is just enormous for this Manchester City team.
02:33He never makes any tackles whatsoever in the final third because he never has to.
02:37He's further forward winning the ball.
02:39He's almost impossible to dribble around.
02:42He carries it out when they're in possession.
02:43He makes that defence work for Man City.
02:46And just while we're sort of on the subject, speaking of Rodri...
02:53And I remember that game in Tottenham Stadium was difficult.
02:59I never won.
03:00I was going to say, which one?
03:01Yeah, the first time, but...
03:03Yeah, we got that coming for you later this week, which is nice.
03:08But anyway, aside from that, the tactical change they had was getting back to the fabled
03:13three box three that they used to win like a million trophies that season.
03:17Manuel Akanji, and I'll just show you his heat map while we're at it, was stepping into
03:21the midfield alongside, of all players, Bernardo Silva.
03:26Now, it has been Gundogan at the base of sort of City's midfield for the last couple of
03:29games, but he was much further up with Phil Foden.
03:32And you can sort of see it on Man City's average position map.
03:36Like it's messy and it's not exact, but the box is definitely there.
03:39Those four players were playing quite compactly in the centre of the midfield.
03:43This is it purely from the first half.
03:45You can sort of see it there again.
03:47And very neatly, because I know you all like footage so much, this is it just in the game.
03:51This is like Man City setting up from a free kick they had on the edge of their own box.
03:55That is the three.
03:56That is the four.
03:57And we've got Akanji with Silva, of all people, as the deepest midfielder.
04:05I'm all right.
04:06And that, by the way, is purely, purely a mobility thing, because Gundogan's actually
04:11better in the tackle and he's better at winning the ball back and he's better at
04:14interceptions. But if you watch the Man City Tottenham game against a fast break or
04:19teams getting in behind him, he looked like he was running in a pair of jeans, just
04:24constantly pointing at players that he was previously marking a few seconds ago as
04:30they swept in to score goals entirely unopposed.
04:34And Silva is not a more physical presence and he's not better at winning the ball
04:37back, but he does cover the ground way easier than Gundogan, does it?
04:42Like this is him winning a tackle on the far left hand side and this is him winning a
04:45tackle on the far right hand side.
04:47So he's not he's not good at it, but he is at least more agile, more mobile.
04:52But just I look, I know what you're thinking, right?
04:56You're looking at this average positions map and the first thing in your head is what
05:01the **** is Rico Lewis doing?
05:04And the answer, just to be really blunt here, is practically nothing.
05:10Going to move this because it's taking up valuable pointing space.
05:12Man City had absolutely no width whatsoever down the entire right hand side of the pitch.
05:20And I know you're quite an intelligent person.
05:22You watch stuff like this all the time.
05:23You think, well, was he not just coming inside to get nearer Harlem to give Walker the
05:28room to get up that side?
05:29And I just this is a still from the this is the positions Kyle Walker likes to take up.
05:34Now, he does not stretch teams.
05:36He does not want to get to the byline.
05:38He does not give you width.
05:40He wanders into the centre.
05:41He makes it even more congested.
05:43Lewis's job should have been to do stuff out here.
05:46And yet, gee whiz.
05:49And Liverpool fans, we are going to talk about you in a second, I promise.
05:52But is it not just mad to look at this system that lives or dies by how much width these
05:59players can create?
06:00Like it's why they bought Docky, it's why they bought Grealish.
06:02Because the objective, give me four Liverpool players here, right, is if you've got a back
06:06four, you have these two super wide to do one of two things.
06:11Either the full backs end up going out to them, which completely stretches this back
06:15four, leaving room for the centre forward and then loads of room, especially for these
06:19two other players to get around.
06:20You've got a 3v2 in the most important area of the pitch.
06:23That's brilliant.
06:24Or because they don't want that to happen, they sit really narrow.
06:28They leave loads of room for these two wide players and they get to dribble at them.
06:32They get to attack them directly.
06:33They get space and time on the ball.
06:35Like Bernardo Silva was very good at doing the stretching part.
06:38Jack Grealish was very good at doing the attacking part.
06:41That's how that system used to work.
06:43And now what have they got in these positions?
06:46They've got young full back who likes to invert into central midfield, Rico Lewis, and box
06:52to box midfielder suffering a crisis of confidence, Mateus Nunes.
06:57That does not work.
06:59And I could make this a lot more complicated and start giving you loads of stats, but this
07:03is basically just the entire problem City had in this game.
07:07Like they created a really nice sort of five players in this scenario and four players
07:11in this area, and they were actually keeping the ball well, hence their possession stats
07:15and playing around Liverpool.
07:17But when they got into this area, this doesn't work.
07:21Like no word of a lie.
07:22I swear this is true.
07:23I started shouting at the television in the pub when this happened, right?
07:27Just look at the lack of space Nunes is creating in this situation, like how crunched together
07:33and how sort of narrow the whole thing is.
07:35If you just imagine he was standing here, think about the knock on impact that would
07:40have for the defender.
07:41And then I think this is Phil Foden, like he'd have room and he'd have room and they
07:46just weren't playing it the way it's supposed to be played.
07:49Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Guardiola's lost his mind.
07:52Like you have Lewis there and you have Nunes there because you're trying to protect these
07:55areas a little bit better than they have been.
07:57And to an extent they did do that, but it also offered them absolutely nothing in an
08:03attacking sense.
08:04Like this is Nunes' entire pass map from playing that position.
08:08Like even when he does get slightly to the byline, the ball comes back.
08:11But so much of it is way further off the touchline than it needs to be.
08:16Like I can't physically see it.
08:17I've just got to imagine it when I'm talking to you about it.
08:19But I'm pretty sure if I remember when I looked at it, there's two successful forward
08:24passes in the final third.
08:26That's, that's rubbish.
08:28But the same graph for Rico Lewis.
08:30Oh my God.
08:33It isn't even that he's not good at playing that position because Rico Lewis is a brilliant
08:37footballer.
08:38It's that he's just not playing that position like at all.
08:43Like that is clearly instructional, by the way.
08:45Guardiola's obviously told him to sort of get into this area to help create more chances
08:49for Haaland to evade his marker, stuff like that, and then allow Walker to try and provide
08:54the width.
08:55But just he's bad at doing that and they're way too congested in the middle.
08:58I see the thought process didn't work.
09:01And to be fair, Guardiola obviously didn't think it worked either, because about 10 minutes
09:05into the second half, he brought on Savino and Doku, who can both stretch Liverpool,
09:10who would take a bit more risks, who would leave them a little bit exposed.
09:14But by that point in the game, on a slot, had changed tack.
09:19Tick.
09:20Right.
09:21Now, Liverpool fans, thank you very much for sticking with us during all of that.
09:24If you've been watching the channel this season, you will know we have been battering
09:28this point into the ground in almost every single Liverpool game you watch.
09:32You see the hand of the manager on the pitch, not in a Super Smash Brothers way.
09:38That would be terrifying just in the system and what they're doing, what he has done.
09:43And the reason they are flying at the top of the Premier League and they are cruising
09:46at the top of the Champions League is that week in, week out, as the pundits would say,
09:52he sets them up in such a way that their individual brilliance, their individual qualities
09:57actually trumps the systems being used.
10:00But crucially, and I don't know why I'm being so intense about this, if he finds himself
10:04in a scenario where that is not true, where the systems are restricting the individual
10:08brilliance, he's just really good at changing it to flip that back round.
10:13But think about that in practice, right?
10:15Man City are now really passive in the press.
10:18They give teams way too much time and space when they're on the ball in certain areas.
10:23You saw that against Brighton, you saw that against Tottenham.
10:25And also, they're really vulnerable to balls down the sides and balls over the top.
10:29And you could not picture, you could not dream, you could not imagineer a better example of
10:35that than Liverpool's first goal.
10:37Now I think part of the reason you wanted Rico Lewis to be drifting into the middle
10:40was that when they didn't have the ball, they could still have a full back four with the
10:44Kanji sort of dropping back and then still have four players in the centre here.
10:48But there was just no enthusiasm, no vigor, no aggression to their off the ball work.
10:54This is not a press.
10:55Or, to put that another way, right, these four lads here are offering zero protection
11:01to this team, whether it's from pressing the player on the ball and stopping them doing
11:05whatever they want, or sitting in front of the back line and giving them a bit of cover.
11:09They might as well not be there.
11:11Thus, if we look at Trent Alexander-Arnold's heat and pass map from that game, that is
11:17absolutely a human footballer trying to take advantage of that fact.
11:23Yes, he's very neat and tidy in deeper areas where they need to try and play through what
11:26little press Manchester City had, but when he could find whatever space he could, bam,
11:32zoom straight to the moon.
11:34And this one here, all the way over on this side of the pitch, that is where the goal comes from.
11:40I wonder how close that is when I'm pointing, because, again, I can't see it.
11:44I think it's there, if it's somewhere.
11:46You freeze this still and just look at this for an out-of-possession shape.
11:50All four of these players just really condensed right on top of each other, but nobody taking
11:55responsibility for the fact Alexander-Arnold has wandered across into this shape.
11:59And then the back four, all just standing on the halfway line.
12:03And when you look at Liverpool's three attackers here, they're doing exactly what City's three
12:07attackers are supposed to be doing in this system, right?
12:10They have not stretched them out, so instead, they have space.
12:13And do you know what the worst part about this goal is, right?
12:17Just look at the body language of these four.
12:19They're not even pretending to try and press the ball there.
12:24That's Trent Alexander-Arnold, one of the best technical players in the league, on his
12:30right foot in space.
12:32Somewhat, even if it's not the instruction, someone's got to throw themselves at that
12:37and they just do nothing.
12:39And so, inevitably, the ball over the top punishes them and it gets Mo Salah into this
12:43position.
12:44But even now, the defence have made their recovery runs, you'd actually say that this
12:47is them pretty well set.
12:49But oh no, would you believe it?
12:52They exploit Kyle Walker's Achilles heel.
12:55And no, that is not receiving a DM from a reality TV star, it is just a footballer making
13:01literally any run around him.
13:03And so, what is that goal?
13:05That is a lack of intensity, it is space in behind, it is space down the sides by the
13:10full-backs, weaknesses correctly identified and individuals using their enormous individual
13:18talent to go and exploit them.
13:20That is the slot trademark and you see it in every game.
13:24And even the penalty, like honestly, even the penalty is born out of a clever tweak
13:28that he made to how the team was playing.
13:30Like this is, Keller has passed Mapp in the first half of this match and isn't it just,
13:35isn't it nice?
13:36Isn't it cutesy?
13:37Isn't he just knocking it to his friends left and right?
13:38Doesn't he just think he's playing five-a-side with his buddies from work?
13:42They're going to be neat, they're going to be controlled, they're going to be tidy, they're
13:45going to play it around a bit before then trying to get in behind Man City.
13:49How nice.
13:50But this is his pass Mapp in the second half and frankly, how dare you, sir, a goalkeeper,
13:55think you can play football with all these grown-up adult men.
13:59You get that sh** out of here if it ever comes to your feet.
14:02And then you look in the lead-up to the penalty, Keller is actually the one with the ball,
14:06City are pressing as much as they have pressed in the entire game and instead of knocking
14:10it here or knocking it there or trying to be clever with it, he goes really, really
14:14long.
14:15And he does that very, very deliberately because if you look at the number of Liverpool players
14:20as he's got the ball, they are defending really deep, but there's still a few short, like
14:25it's not everybody back.
14:26And that was the change that Slott made in the second half because he knew Man City were
14:29going to come on to them a bit more.
14:31So he had everybody sit nice and deep, but he did so while leaving the front three really
14:36far up the other end of the pitch, creating this enormous gap and effectively giving them
14:41all 1v1s against City's defenders after Akanji steps in.
14:46And it's not a precise way to play.
14:48It's not a genius way to play or anything like that.
14:50It's actually very low percentage and unlikely to really sort of yield anything.
14:55But on this one occasion, they can't deal with it.
14:58The three of them correctly and effectively scrap the ball off them, get through and win
15:02a penalty.
15:03And that, again, is a weakness correctly identified and exploited.
15:08And even in that half, you take it back slightly further, where does the Salah one-on-one that
15:12he should have scored come from?
15:13Like clearly there was an instruction to be very passive in your own half and sit in sort
15:17of a low block.
15:18But when City's defenders had it, press the life out of them, try and nick it off them.
15:22And if we go back to those numbers from the second half, you can sort of see that's by
15:26design.
15:27Like City had all of the ball and all of the possession and Liverpool were being passive.
15:32But as soon as it was with any of their defenders, Liverpool were on them.
15:36Like I am on a Sitalopram.
15:38Like every single week, slot finds a new way to impress you with this stuff.
15:42And to finish, right, can we just look at Liverpool's running fixtures?
15:47Because I am old enough to remember when they hadn't played anybody and the real tests were
15:53to come.
15:54So shall we just quickly run over those?
15:56Chelsea, they won.
15:57Leipzig, they won.
15:58Arsenal, away from home, they drew.
16:00Brighton, they beat twice.
16:01Liverpool, they smashed.
16:03Villa, they beat.
16:04Southampton, they beat.
16:05Real Madrid, they mullered.
16:07And now Manchester City, the arch-nemesis, just swept aside without really breaking a
16:14sweat.
16:15And oh boy, you'd really hate to be their next opponent, wouldn't you?
16:18I'm reasonably sure it's definitely not the team I support.
16:22Ah, well, nevertheless.
16:25Anyway though, yeah, that's pretty much it.
16:27It wasn't really an overly complicated game.
16:29There's nothing too clever about it.
16:31But I do think individually, City looked a lot better and I would imagine that corner
16:35is about to start to be turned.
16:38But Liverpool, you just see in this game why they're so well positioned to go and win everything.
16:43Because even when the system isn't overly clever, even when they're not dominating another
16:48team, they've got the tools and the weapons to A, not concede, and B, score goals.
16:54Like, I didn't even really have time to get into this here, but Van Dijk absolutely dominated
16:59Erling Haaland one-on-one.
17:00Like, the individual quality throughout the squad is just mind-blowing.
17:05But yes, if you have enjoyed this video, and you bloody well better have, by the way, because
17:08I didn't spend two hours rebuilding the studio today for nothing, then you can let us know
17:12what you make of it in the comments below.
17:14Man City fan, Liverpool fan, what did you think?
17:16What are your prospects for the rest of the season?
17:19I would dearly like to hear it all.
17:20And you can get me across all the social medias, all of them, at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y.
17:25The football team socials are in the corner of the video.
17:28And I think that's everything.
17:31We really do have a Rodri interview coming up this week.
17:33That wasn't just some AI thing I made.
17:35We went over, and he was the nicest man in the world.
17:38And I think we're going to get out on Thursday, the same day the mag comes out.
17:41So look out for that, because it's so good.
17:46It's so good.
17:47I'm really proud of it.
17:49And that's it.
17:50That's all I've got to say.
17:52Adios.