Liverpool suffered a nightmare start during Saturday’s Premier League draw with Fulham.
The Reds never really settled early on, and were soon behind after Andreas Pereira fired home at the back post.
There were question marks over whether Pereira should have been on the pitch. Mike Dean claimed the referee made a mistake in not sending the Fulham man off for a poor tackle on Ryan Gravenberch.
Nevertheless, he was there to stick the ball in at the far post, with Andy Robertson arguably at fault for letting Pereira sneak in.
Robertson’s day then went from bad to worse, with the left-back clattering Harry Wilson following his own heavy touch towards his goal.
The red card was well deserved and coming only 17 minutes into the game, forced Arne Slot to reshuffle his starting XI.
Arne Slot reshuffles Reds
Robertson was arguably the one Liverpool player who Slot could not afford to lose for any reason on Saturday.
The 30-year-old is the only natural left-back currently in the Liverpool squad.
Slot spoke about the dangers of overplaying Robertson before the game, and confirmed that Kostas Tsimikas is still not quite ready yet.
As a result, it was fascinating to see what the Liverpool head coach did following the Scotsman’s sending off.
Initially, pundit Karen Carney spotted that Slot changed things to go with a three at the back, with Gravenberch dropping in between the centre-backs and Trent Alexander-Arnold going to right wing-back, with Cody Gakpo doing the same on the left.
“They’ve changed shape, gone to a three at the back, but Fulham are a tough team to break down,” Carney said on premierleague.com.
“They’re rushing it a little bit once they get into the final third, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Nunez comes on and gives them a different dynamic.”
Slot changes things again
Liverpool were rocked for a time after Robertson’s red card. Fulham could easily have gotten in once or twice as the Reds readjusted.
But after just a few minutes, Slot realised that he had to change it again.
Gakpo is evidently not a left wing-back and looked all at sea when trying to track back down the Fulham right.
To his credit, Slot noticed this, and instead switched Joe Gomez to left-back, keeping a back two of Gravenberch and Virgil van Dijk.
That’s the way Liverpool played the rest of the game, but they’ll have to do something different for Robertson’s incoming ban.
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