Thread by @Jon_Mackenzie

It’s a Monday and on Mondays, we notice so…

#DidYouNotice how Arne Slot swung the game in Liverpool’s favour against Arsenal this weekend?

It’s pretty clear when you look at the per half data that @markrstats put out that this was a game of two halves…

In the first half, Arsenal were able to smother Liverpool’s build up but progress the ball relatively comfortably themselves. But in the second, the balance shifted so that Liverpool were more successful at building up than their opponent. So.. what happened?

Now, you know me. I love a bit of pressing chat. And I could have talked about how Liverpool tweaked their press to account for the fact that Arsenal were finding it easy to create a free player in the space between Szoboszlai and Salah in the first half.

But Gravenberch has you covered on the tactical details for that…

https://x.com/cnsultra/status/1962324254340309230

And also @BundesAbel:

https://x.com/BundesAbel/status/1962520834288808336

Instead, I thought I would take you through the changes Slot made in possession to get Liverpool more of a foothold in a game where they were merely passengers in the first half.

These tweaks are also interesting because they revealed an old weakness in Mikel Arteta’s approach… but that’s getting ahead of ourselves.

By now, we all know what to expect from Slot’s team on the ball. There are the quotes he made about how his approach differed from Klopp’s…

…with the idea that he wants his team to possess the ball in deeper areas in order to control the moments when they choose to attack directly.

In this way, they’re reducing the amount of direct attacks they’re making which, in turn, reduces the chaos in their games. But they’re also able to prepare themselves to generate the best conditions possible for these direct attacks.

Because of this, Slot often likes the players in his build up unit to retain closer proximity to help them retain possession. For example, you’ll see the centre back and the full back fairly close at times in deep build up.

In the game against Arsenal though, this actually made Arsenal’s task of pressing them a little easier.

As you can see here, Arsenal are using the front line of their press to bounce between the pivot and the centre backs depending on which side of the pitch the ball is on.

If both forwards go, then one of the midfielders is ready to step up…

Liverpool did have Gravenberch drop in between the centre backs but Arsenal were happy to let him sit outside the block because it meant they could comfortably match the Liverpool midfielders in the centre.

In the end, Arsenal found it relatively easy to prevent Liverpool from progressing the ball in any really dangerous way, either forcing them long or being able to smother their ball progression pretty quickly.

But in the second half, we saw a tweak from Slot. Primarily, he got his players increasing the distances between them in deeper build up to make it harder for the Arsenal players to access their opponents in the press.

Here’s the first goal kick after the restart. I’ve included arrows to give a rough indication of the positions the Liverpool players are taking up relative to their positions in the first half.

They go long off this goal kick but for the second goal kick they go short with the same sort of structure in place (this time without Szoboszlai inverting):

I’ve drawn the lines on to show how in the first half, Arsenal were covering the pivot with the front line but now the distance is so long that Declan Rice has to cover the pivot. The spaces are much bigger than in the first half.

The other thing to notice is that the Liverpool full backs are also much higher.

For Kerkez, this is to force Madueke deeper, away from having good access to the first line of Liverpool’s build up, which should make it easier for Liverpool to play around the two Arsenal forwards.

On the other side, Arsenal have tweaked their press so it’s now Martinelli pressing the centre back with Merino dropped into midfield. This means that Calafiori has to jump to Szoboszlai when he’s in the wide channel (this is the same thing that Liverpool did in the second half).

This switch, then, means that Arsenal’s second line is forced much deeper, giving them worse access to Liverpool’s first line of build up. More space = more time to find better progression options.

Another thing they did while in settled possession (e.g. once they had moved comfortably out of the first phase of build up) was to drop Gravenberch out into the full back zone to join the first line of build up.

Again, this increases the distance between himself and the midfielder who might be tasked to mark him in the pivot zone, raising questions as to how best to cover him.

His presence in the spot that Kerkez was occupying in the first half meant that the full back could just step forward, dragging Madueke with him and posing a conundrum for Madueke and Timber on that side as to who should mark.

In settled possession, Martinelli is back to covering the full back and so Szoboszlai is also pushing up to pull him away from the first line of Liverpool’s build up.

But notice how much space there is between the Liverpool first and second line now…

Effectively, by increasing the spaces between their players, pushing one of the pivots higher, the full backs higher and having Gravenberch drop out in settled possession, Liverpool now have much more control of the ball and so can be more efficient in their attacking play.

One final thing to notice is how the Liverpool second line is also stretched out more than in the first half, giving them much more scope to play the direct balls into the forwards that they like to use to initiate attacks…