Bland
The conquest for consistency goes on as Arne Slot and the red men come up short, yet again. This time it’s a loss against Andoni Iraola’s Bournemouth. The Vitality stadium rocked with joy till the dying seconds, as it was Armine Adli’s goal in the 95th minute that sunk the reds. The game was eventful but largely even, momentum bounced between both teams with volatility, something that is to be expected when facing a team of Bournemouth’s ilk. Of course, the game was to be predicated on running, with and without the ball. From a Liverpool perspective it was a bland attacking performance. A step down in the levels of efficiency we saw against Burnley and Marseille. For large parts of the game, Bournemouth ceded possession, Liverpool had it. An interesting fact because even though Liverpool had 67% ball possession, not much was achieved. Bournemouth were more threatening and more decisive in their attacking endeavours, racking up 9 shots in the reds’ penalty box. It’s time to start digesting.
The build-up phase was tilted in Liverpool’s favour. Bournemouth only achieved one 1 high turnover, Liverpool achieved 7 but only racked up 1 shot from these situations, signalling a lack of consistency in the moments the team found themselves in more acres of space. From a Bournemouth perspective, they perhaps allowed Liverpool more ball possession. Allowing 23 passes before intervening with a defensive action is hefty increase from their usual league average of around 9 passes per defensive action. Following this same statistic, it looks as though in the game Liverpool only allowed 9. Let’s compound this further and consider that Liverpool spent 74.5% of their time with the ball in Bournemouth’s final third. Did all these amount to anything? The short answer is no. The intricacy of the answer is where the sweet spot resides.
To accumulate 7 high turnovers in a game and only 1 leading to a shot is a damning statistic, considering Arne Slot has been keen to point out the number of low blocks they’ve come against. To find themselves in better attacking positions compared to recent games and not make use of them was disappointing. The switch to a split striker system is interesting and as always, the players need time to adapt. Slot wants to push his goal-scorers into the centre, closer to the box. There is more of an emphasis on runs in-behind for direct shots on goal, rather than the usual wing-play we see from Salah and Gakpo. Squad suitability is a factor as it becomes easy to see Isak and Ekitike bonding within this formation. The spaces in these areas were often congested however, meaning shots had to be taken from further away than intended.
Moving onto the in-possession phase, Arne Slot decided to push Ryan Gravenberch higher into the number 8 position, leaving Alexis MacAllister to be the primary ball-handler in the build-up phase. The Argentine often dropped into the backline, allowed the full backs to push on higher. This forms a chain of 3 players who could then look to exploit Bournemouth’s chain of 2 in their attempts to apply pressure on the ball. With Wirtz, Szoboszlai and Gravenberch stationed on the higher spaces, Liverpool had a clear qualitative superiority in the centre. They looked to dribbles and ball carries forward with the view to play a direct pass into the split strikers. Liverpool never really achieved this tactical linearity, as though they were able to arrive at the promising situations, Mohammed Salah and Cody Gakpo were not sufficiently apart of this equation.
Get Samuel AP’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Let’s take a quick look at the 33rd minute: Bournemouth’s second goal sees us return to the same wounds, caused by the same self-inflictions. The usual factors presented themselves, sitting off the ball, giving the opponents time and space to pass the ball forwards. Oh wait, an important factor is at play here: the reds were down to ten men. But no, this is instantly negated if we remember the fact that we’ve seen same type of goal across Arne Slot’s tenure. Liverpool sit off the opposition player (usually the centre-backs), then due to extreme man-marking tendencies the midfielders get pulled apart to create the chasm of spaces that can be accessed with one pass. For the goal, in the first instance Bournemouth had a 3v2 advantage, pushing Liverpool’s front two to one side before accessing the space on the other, the space was found. Bournemouth drove into this space, only to be met by a retreating defensive block, who as usual have forgotten about the ball and the emerging spaces open when you chase the tails of your opposite number.
No doubt has an elephant appeared in the room, others have argued that it has already appeared, however much is clear: a conversation must be had, the question must be asked: Is Arne Slot’s job safe? The results haven’t been up to par, though the performances haven’t been necessarily bad. 13 games unbeaten is an improvement from the previous 13 games, of which Liverpool lost 9. Solely assessing performances and the oppositions tactics, the conundrum has been low-blocks, long balls and a reoccurring pattern of negative game-states early on in games. Arne Slot sought to solve this tension by regularly fielding 4 midfielders, thus increasing the amount of defensive activity when the team were without the ball. In possession, an extra midfielder allowed them to achieve better security of the ball, the riddance of a certain attacker was heralded! Defensive solidity was achieved!
But then came along a different conundrum, how do you then keep your defensive solidity and maintain a potent enough attacking threat to break teams down? That now seems to be the question. Some strides were made in the previous games but the continuity in progress continues to evade Arne Slot’s grasp.
Turning away from the outside to look inside, Arne Slot must no doubt look in the mirror and come to grips with his philosophical choices when deciding on his tactical set-ups. Why is there a pattern across his tenure of a team that concedes goals from the same tactical choices of the players? These tensions seem to inseparable from his tactical identity as coach. The last standing questions leaves us here: How do you become proactive when you cautious?
