Liverpool’s 1-1 draw doesn’t seem to have eased the pressure on Arne Slot, and with another big week looming, he’ll be desperate for a positive result on Saturday. Standing in their way, though, will be a Leeds United who seemed to have stumbled on a formula that could save them from a drop right back down to the Championship.
Where could this match be won (or lost)? Do the managers have any selection headaches? What must we watch out for? Here’s five thing to watch out for this weekend:
Will Leeds new-found 3-5-2 smash Liverpool’s brittle confidence?
A win at West Ham United and a home draw against high-flying Sunderland are the kind of results Liverpool needed to arrest an alarming slide, but their performances still have a way to go to match the high standards set last season. What they need then, is a game where they can ease themselves into the kind of tempo they want to set… but at Elland Road, there won’t be much easing into anything.
A tactical change that under pressure Daniel Farke made at half-time against Manchester City over the weekend has seemingly changed Leeds from sure-shot relegation contenders to the kind of tough unit they’ve always identified as: going from 4-1-4-1 to 3-5-2.
Ao Tanaka of Leeds United celebrates against Chelsea. Shaun Botterill/Getty Images
Three-at-the-back is very much a topic of discussion thanks to Ruben Amorim’s obstinacy at Manchester United, but where it differs for Leeds is that the 3-5-2 seems to maximise the strengths of their key players. Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Lukas Nmecha make a hard-running, aerial-duel-winning centre-forward pair — the exact kind that Liverpool have been unable to live with all season — while the midfield three of Ao Tanaka, Ethan Ampadu and Anton Stach provide the right mix of tenacity and calm on the ball that the formation demands.
That change in formation also came with a (directly proportional) switch in intensity that almost won them a draw at the Etihad and decidedly got them those three points against Chelsea. They discomfited the ‘big boys’, made it hard to play against them, won second-ball duels by pushing their CFs closer and ratcheted up the chances they were creating themselves. Sample this: Against City, the 4-1-4-1 took 2 shots and created 0.1 xG (0 big chances) in a goalless first half. In the second, the 3-5-2 took 7 shots, created 1.44 xG (3 big chances) and scored two goals. Against Chelsea, those numbers read 17 shots, 2.79 xG (2 big chances), 3 goals.
Farke may have emphasised on the need for “unpredictability”, but he’s hit upon what appears a winning formula. It’s certainly one that’s troubled Liverpool all season long.
Set-pieces: Leeds’ strength, Liverpool’s weakness
This one is fairly simple: Leeds have scored seven goals from set-pieces. Liverpool have conceded 10 (and they’ve conceded four penalties), and the majority of those have been conceded from second- or third-ball situations. They’ve not only struggled to deal convincingly with balls hurled into their defensive third, they have also struggled to mop up anything that drops from those unconvincing clearances.
Liverpool’s toothlessness on attacking set-pieces of their own (only two scored from set-pieces) and Leeds’ undisputed aerial ability and set-pieces could very well be where the match is decided.
The Salah question… again
And it will continue to be asked again, and again, so sharp has been the fall from world-beating-form for Mohamed Salah. At this point (matchweek 14) last season, he had 13 goals and eight assists. This season he has four, and two. He was on the bench for the duration of Liverpool’s win at West Ham and when he came on in the second half against Sunderland, he had little impact.
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When asked whether Salah’s omission had sent a message to the dressing room, Virgil van Dijk said, “That’s always been the case. It’s not like you have unlimited credit, everyone has to perform… [Salah] has been doing that, but the manager made that decision in the last two games. We all want the best for the club.”
With the club struggling to take the chances they create (no one in the squad has missed more big chances than Salah’s six, or underperformed their xGOT to the level of Salah’s 4 v 4.2), Salah may have to continue to sit out as Slot looks for a combination that provides him either better shooting efficiency or a more balanced defensive unit that helps out with the leakiness in the other end.
For Liverpool, Wirtz is key
The shot may have been horrendous (it looked like it might even end up as a throw-in, the angle was that bad) but the way he worked the chance that eventually resulted in Liverpool’s lone goal against Sunderland showed that Florian Wirtz is perhaps finally beginning to get to grips with the Premier League.
If you count the shot he took against Sunderland as an assist, it was his first goal contribution in 13 league games (he missed one match through injury) and Slot will hope that this sparks to life the player who had 31 goals and assists in 45 matches across all competitions last season. He now seems to be finding the spaces he likes to operate in and is dribbling into those with the surety that made him the Premier League’s second-most expensive signing of all time.
That will be key against Leeds. With the 3-5-2 squeezing space in the middle of the park, Wirtz will need to move into the pockets of space in between the three centre-backs and three central-midfielders and it’s likely he’ll operate with the freedom to do just that. He ranks in the 95th percentile across attacking midfielders and wingers in Europe for passes attempted (55.47 per 90) and in the 91st for progressive passes (6.02 per 90), and it’s that willingness to take risks and constantly keep it moving that will help Liverpool overcoming their attacking rut.
For Leeds, it’s Dominic Calvert-Lewin
We touched upon this in point No. 1, but it cannot be emphasised enough how much Liverpool have failed to deal with the long-ball-and-knock-down strategies most teams have employed against them this season. There are few better purveyors of that method in the Premier League than Calvert-Lewin, and with Virgil van Dijk’s defending intensity lackadaisical and Ibrahima Konaté’s almost non-existent, he will be relishing the prospect of showcasing his physicality in Liverpool’s third of the pitch.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin Stu Forster/Getty Images
With two goals in two games, against opponents of the calibre of Man City and Chelsea, Calvert-Lewin’s confidence will also be high, and the ex-Everton veteran will be set to bring his A-game to the match.
Add Lukas Nmecha’s incessant running — whether it be in leading the press, chasing lost causes, running into the channels — and it’s an old-school striker duo that is right out of Arne Slot’s worst tactical nightmares.
