There was a feeling in Prague last night that Liverpool were not going to have it their own way against the home side.
Sparta Prague hadn’t lost a game of football in 90 minutes at home in the epet Arena all season. They looked like a threat on paper. But not much can faze this Liverpool team at the moment. In the end, the Reds breezed past yet another challenge with ease.
Jurgen Klopp’s men put five past a Sparta Prague team, who in all fairness created plenty of chances of their own. But Caoimhin Kelleher made some superb saves to make this game a lot more comfortable for Liverpool than it might have been.
At the other end, Klopp’s men were ruthless in front of goal. Darwin Nunez ended the night with two equally sublime finishes. Meanwhile, Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister and Luis Diaz all joined in on the act.
Klopp’s new formation experiment
The key to Liverpool’s success was that they controlled the midfield. Harvey Elliott and Alexis Mac Allister both thrived and were involved in two goals each while creating the joint most chances (4) in the game.
They were also both part of a new shaped midfield with Jurgen Klopp seemingly trialling a triangle system. This saw Mac Allister dropping deeper to slot in alongside Wataru Endo into a double pivot. Meanwhile, Harvey Elliott pushed forward to occupy the number ten position in front of Mac Allister and Endo.
The above picture best demonstrates this shape with Endo and Mac Allister playing parallel and Elliott pushing further forward. Liverpool maintained this formation throughout the match even when the substitutions were introduced.
When Dominik Szoboszlai came on, he initially occupied the number ten role, while Elliott was pushed to the right-wing. However, as the Hungarian explained after the game, he was asked to drop back into more of a holding midfield role when Bobby Clark was introduced alongside Endo. Klopp even called him over and had a brief discussion on the touchline with Szoboszlai, as the substitution was about to take place.
“We spoke about because of that [Mac Allister substitution] I have to watch the space next to Endo more in the number six role because one of the younger players [Bobby Clark] came on and he was going to be the more advanced [midfielder] so he just told me to pay attention and be more defensive,” Szoboszlai said.
That instruction confirms Liverpool were very much experimenting with the triangle formation in this game. It now raises the question, perhaps Jurgen Klopp has a similar plan for Manchester City on Sunday? And could the triangle midfield be how Liverpool approaches the rest of the season? Based on last night’s game, you can’t really argue against it.
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