- 8 hours ago
Despite picking up some useful results, Liverpool's recent performances have raised alarm among their fans. Now they've broken the Premier League record for games lost in the 90th minute, questions are being asked about Arne Slot's system and why this keeps happening. Adam Clery examines how they both attack and defend in games, to understand why they concede so many fatal late goals.
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00:00Right, hello everybody, welcome to the Adam Cleary Football Channel, where Liverpool's situation is currently...
00:07bad.
00:08Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think a fortuitous injury-time goal against bottom of the league means everything
00:13is on fire,
00:14just ask Arsenal, but that 90 minutes against Wolves was actually so typical of the problems Liverpool currently find themselves
00:24with,
00:24and indeed have found themselves with in various guises across the entire season, so let's look at those.
00:36Now, just a reminder before we begin that ACFC is now proudly brought to you by our pals at Trading212,
00:44as you can see here from this vaguely threatening cuddly toy that now sits on the set.
00:50There'll be an advert for them in a bit, but he, in the meantime, does need a name, so suggestions
00:55in the comments, please.
00:56But yes, anyway, Liverpool, what we are looking at today is basically this.
01:00You've seen this stat on social media about Liverpool breaking the record for most games lost to 90th-minute winners
01:07this season with five.
01:09Which is bad, obviously, but it's actually, somehow, worse than that.
01:14Ayo Tanaka's 96th-minute goal for Leeds and Harrison Reid's 97th-minute goal for Fulham didn't consign them to defeats,
01:22but they were last-second goals that still cost them wins.
01:27So that is, in total, seven games this season where they have failed to hold on to a useful result
01:33at the very, very last knockings.
01:36But the thing is, it's actually, somehow, still worse than that.
01:41With 80 minutes gone against Man Utd, they were level, but lost that game.
01:46And with 80 minutes gone, they were beating Man City, but lost that game.
01:51Now, you might well think this is a team that struggles to see out tight games.
01:56Their problems must all be defensive, but it is also their inability to build on the leads they have.
02:04And that is a major attacking problem for a team as talented as this.
02:09So, let's look at that.
02:11Now, these are Liverpool's first-half chances from that Wolves game, right?
02:17The squares are the passes that led to a shot, and the circles are the shots themselves.
02:22I've included them both, so you can get a bit of a feel of how these chances came about.
02:26Now, the two best are these two here, and they are still not great.
02:31First, Cody Gakpo jumps on a ball after Wolves give it away.
02:34He's at a bad angle.
02:36He's off balance.
02:37He's being pressured, and he just hits it straight at the goalkeeper.
02:40And then, for the other one, they do open Wolves up a bit.
02:43It rolls out to Frimpong, and he blazes it over the bar.
02:47And that is, more or less, all they had to show in that first half.
02:52In that first half?
02:53For that first half.
02:54Those are the words, Adam.
02:55That's how we speak.
02:56Now, these are both bad options, badly executed, but if we look at them side-by-side like this for
03:01a second,
03:02then a rash shot is probably the best option.
03:06Frimpong has no pass, no cutback, no cross, and no space to make something better.
03:12He could maybe drive down the outside, but then he'd be crossing the ball into a 2v5 situation.
03:17And as for Gakpo, he could maybe try and roll this into Salah, but that's just never quite on for
03:23him.
03:23My point is, you would struggle to say that anything in these two chances has really been created by Liverpool.
03:31And if you go back and you watch that first half, you can see why.
03:34Liverpool have the ball at the back here, and Wolves are not in a really deep or compact low block
03:40yet,
03:41so there is space for them to play in.
03:43When Frimpong or Bradley pushes up down this side, sometimes Graven Birch will drop into the space behind to offer
03:50a passing option.
03:51Now, there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing that.
03:53Loads of teams will have similar rotations, so when the ball does go out to him,
03:57he carries it forward and just lets stop and look at his options here.
04:02Frimpong is on the outside, but he's on his heels.
04:05He's not asking for it, so he can drive down this side and combine with Salah.
04:09And that is maybe a little bit disappointing, but it's still early on in the game.
04:14There's no need to be expending that much energy, so whatever.
04:17And then for Salah, you've got two men in very short attendance, but he's also static, not offering any sort
04:23of real option here.
04:24Maybe Sabaslai could ask for it in here, but that's a tricky pass, and he's also not displaying any urgency
04:31for receiving it.
04:32And then Eketike, he's over here sitting on the far defender rather than the near one, so his only real
04:38option is backwards.
04:40There is nothing incisive or forwards that he can do with this ball.
04:44And again, just looking at this as a still, that's not the end of the world.
04:48It is literally just recycling possession, which is what you're supposed to do.
04:52So it goes to McAllister, who's put under a bit of pressure.
04:55He gives it back to him, and they've actually brought Wolves out a little bit more here.
05:00But again, if we stop it and look at his options,
05:04Frimpong is still on his heels here while Salah is double marked.
05:08Neither of them are threatening to make a run.
05:10And there are three players directly ahead of him, but all in a line,
05:16and all with their back to goal just stood watching the play.
05:20Now I would argue there is maybe a very ambitious but very technically difficult pass
05:26to be played into Eketike here that could be immediately dropped off to Sabaslai,
05:32who would then be facing the goal.
05:34And this is not me digging Ryan Gravenberch out for not making that pass,
05:39because there's only very few players in the world who would even see it or attempt it.
05:43And it's certainly not the kind of pass that he is in the team to be making.
05:48And also, when you look at the body language of the lads I'm talking about receiving this,
05:53they are not screaming at him to take that risk.
05:56So the point I'm trying to make is that Ryan Gravenberch getting on the ball twice within a minute
06:01in pretty good positions, but not being able to play a forward pass is not a him problem.
06:09That is a team problem.
06:10And you saw it all the way through the first half.
06:13Liverpool with the ball, just not looking sure how to play it forward with any real conviction.
06:21Friends, one moment, please.
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07:12Yes.
07:13Back to the video.
07:15Now, very rarely can you sum up a team's entire season with one single 35-second-long clip,
07:22but Liverpool do manage it here.
07:25To go into McAllister, who turns, can't see anything really ahead of him,
07:28so he goes sideways to Frimpong,
07:30who turns, can't really see anything ahead of him,
07:33and goes back to Alisson.
07:35And then, having forced them all the way back,
07:37Wolves keep the pressure on and force them into giving away a throw-in.
07:41And that is, obviously, quite bad, right?
07:44But then, from the Wolves' throw-in, Liverpool win it back, immediately break forward, put Kerkhez in down the left,
07:53and it's only a really good block that stops it coming into the box where they are three versus two
08:00in front of goal.
08:01And just in that 30-odd-second exchange, right, you see everything you need to know about Arna Slott's Liverpool
08:09this season.
08:10Like, they're really struggling to move the ball forwards when they have settled, controlled possession,
08:15but when the game opens up and becomes transitional, all of a sudden, they're excellent.
08:20But you see, the problem with that, right, and why Liverpool find themselves in this perpetual cycle,
08:26is that when these games become transitional, right, they are chaos.
08:31Because while they're very good at attacking in these situations,
08:34they're not very good at all at defending in them.
08:38So they try and avoid games becoming transitional by being more controlled in possession.
08:43But the problem then is that they are very good defensively because they do control games well,
08:47but they lose the ability to attack effectively.
08:51They can't move the ball forward as well.
08:53So they need to open the games up and make them more transitional so they can attack much better.
08:57But they don't want to do that because then they don't defend as well,
08:59and they give away goals, and on and on and on and on and on it goes.
09:02And just to segue ever so slightly here, right, Florian Wurtz is now a massive, massive miss for Liverpool
09:09because after a really bad start, he is now absolutely vital to how they move the ball forward.
09:16Like, this is his pass map from the Bournemouth game he played recently,
09:19and just think about how much more progressive, how much more incisive,
09:24how much more forward that is than some of the clips we just showed you.
09:28Like, he floats around the most dangerous areas of the pitch and tries to find players who are ahead of
09:34him.
09:34And if you look at the greyed-out passes here, these are the unsuccessful ones,
09:37but even those show some ambition.
09:40He's trying to do the right things, even if it doesn't come off.
09:43He's trying to make chances. He's trying to get his teammates in behind.
09:47And then you take this and you compare it with Dominic Soberslay's same pass map from the Wolves game,
09:53and it's night and day.
09:55And again, that's not a criticism of him as an individual.
09:58He's very involved, he's very busy, but so many of these passes are sideways
10:03because that's just not really his game compared to someone like Florian Wurtz.
10:09And again, don't get me wrong, Liverpool have still gone a bit stale in possession
10:13when Wurtz is on the pitch.
10:15It's just so much more noticeable when he's not.
10:18But yes, I know exactly what you're thinking.
10:21Adam, you've forgotten the premise of your own video
10:24because how does their inability to open doors as easily as they were opening them last season
10:30explain why they're giving away so many dramatic late goals?
10:36So for that, we look again at the chances Liverpool created in the first half against Wolves.
10:42And we very slowly morph those into the chances they instead created in the second half.
10:49And you've got here, get out of the way, Hugo, right?
10:51You've got here maybe five chances I would say are in really good positions,
10:55and one of them even results in a goal.
10:58So what's the difference between the second half and the first half?
11:01Well, if we just refine this ever so slightly, right?
11:05So instead of it being the entire second half, it's just from after Wolves take the lead.
11:10Then, barring that weird Cody Gakpo goal line clearance thing that he did,
11:15for some reason, all of Liverpool's best chances in this game
11:20come after Rodrigo Gomez put Wolves in the lead.
11:24And that is because going behind immediately necessitated a change in the way Liverpool were playing.
11:32On a slot, immediately subs off Canade for Chiesa,
11:35having already taken off Gakpo, Gravenberg, Kerkhez and Frimpong.
11:39And that meant that this was basically Liverpool in the closing stretches of that game.
11:45And I've not just pulled this out my arse or anything,
11:47this is based on the average positions the substitutes took up after they came on
11:51and where that moved the lads who stayed on the pitch after starting it, right?
11:55That was basically how they were playing the last 15 minutes against Wolves.
12:01And it's pretty obvious, looking at it, to see why this team went and got an equaliser.
12:06Like, Andy Robertson's a brilliant up-and-down runner still,
12:08despite not having the legs he used to.
12:11Ngomo is unpredictable. He can get on the ball deep.
12:13He can drive at people. He can beat people.
12:15He can do the unexpected.
12:17Curtis Jones, he does want the ball in those pockets,
12:20like we were showing you before, and you can even occasionally find other teammates that are in them.
12:24And Chiesa is another centre-forward, and that's really useful.
12:28So immediately, it's a lot more dynamic, a lot more threatening,
12:32a lot more likely to get you a goal, but also, just have a look at it.
12:37It's considerably less stable.
12:40And more importantly, way less secure with the ball.
12:45So what do you get? Much better chances.
12:47A goal created by harassing Wolves, forcing a mistake, and getting at them in transition.
12:53Note, if you will, that I did not say, through patient, structured build-up play,
12:58but also, complete defensive disarray in the latter stages of this match.
13:04They do try, after the goal, to get the structure back.
13:07Curtis Jones is the right-back here, and he should just clear this.
13:10But instead, he gives it to Alisson, who does not have a secure option ahead of him,
13:15so just slices it into a central midfield that is now made up of Engermoa and Chiesa.
13:23And even from just hearing that sentence, you know you're in trouble.
13:27Neither of them demonstrate their most basic defensive instincts here.
13:31They just let Andre walk the ball into this area,
13:34and neither Gomez nor Van Dijk can leave these two players to close the shot down.
13:40McAllister offers, like, half a token leg to try and get a block in.
13:45And yes, the shot itself is extremely lucky from a Wolves perspective,
13:49but from a Liverpool one, it's a situation that does not need to exist.
13:54It's a problem entirely of their own making.
13:57And if you go back and you look at a lot of these late goals they're conceding,
14:01you start to see the same story of dramatic changes being made to the XI
14:06to give them something going forward,
14:08but then that lack of structure costing them at the back.
14:12The late goal against Crystal Palace, Chiesa and Engermoa and Frimpong,
14:16they were all on for Canate, McAllister and Bradley.
14:19And that, quite literally, gets them the equaliser,
14:21but with no Canate, they don't win this first ball.
14:25Then Engermoa is asleep on the second,
14:27and Frimpong leaves Nketiah at the back post.
14:30The Man United game much earlier in the season.
14:32You remember, they were losing that, but they battled back,
14:35got the equaliser by opening up the game,
14:38but the winning corner comes from them now having a central midfield
14:42of Virts and Jones instead of McAllister and Gravenberch.
14:46They're bypassed so easily on this second ball because,
14:51well, of course they are.
14:52That is not the central midfield pairing you would ever pick
14:55if your objective is to be stable, but they were losing that game.
14:59Slott had to make those sorts of changes to try and get them back in.
15:03And the point I really do have to try and get across here
15:05is this is not about individual players making the team better or worse,
15:10depending on whether they're in it or they're not.
15:13This is about the overall structure and the balance of all 11 players.
15:18Time and again this season, Liverpool set themselves up to be in control of games,
15:23and they are quite comfortably, but they can't make decent chances.
15:27So, on a slot will inevitably make the changes required to open up the game a bit more,
15:33which is where they are at their best going forward.
15:35But that loss of control keeps biting them in the arse
15:39because they do not defend moments like this as well as they used to.
15:44Now, is that maybe because out of a possible 3,780 minutes
15:50across all competitions this season,
15:5334-year-old Virgil van Dijk has played a jaw-dropping 3,600 of them.
16:01The most minutes for a football player in England who is not a goalkeeper.
16:07Canate and Gravenbirch are both just either side of 3,000 themselves,
16:11which is in the top 2% or 3% for outfield players.
16:15And when you look at these last-minute goals, these counter-attack situations,
16:19those are the three players who are individually most likely to bail you out of those situations.
16:26There are hundreds of times for Liverpool in the past.
16:29But now, they've got more minutes in the legs than about 98% of the entire rest of the division.
16:37Could that maybe be a factor here?
16:39I don't know. It's just a thought.
16:41So yes, bottom line, Liverpool keep giving away really damaging late goals
16:45and they're probably going to continue to give away damaging late goals
16:50until they find a way to score more goals when they are in control of matches.
16:56That's the bottom line here.
16:58If when they dominated games, they got two or three goals ahead, this would not matter.
17:03Now, I hesitate to say if you enjoyed that,
17:06because I imagine if you're a Liverpool fan, it's quite a tricky watch at the minute.
17:09But if you did feel something in any way, shape or form,
17:13please let us know what it was in the comments down below.
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17:25Until next time, you can get me across all the social medias at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y.
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17:36There's one in, like, when's this going out? Thursday?
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17:41But until I see you next, which may be then, it may be not.
17:44Who knows?
17:45I will see you soon.
17:47Goodbye.
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