With Liverpool pushing for a winning goal against Sunderland, Arne Slot was prepared to take some risks. Very nearly, though, the Reds boss went a little too far.
When Wilson Isidor broke away on the counter following a Liverpool free-kick, the French-born forward almost won the three points for the Black Cats when he rounded Alisson Becker— only for Federico Chiesa to intervene.
Sprinting back and stopping the danger, the Italian forward made a decisive impact. Had Chiesa not been positioned in the right place after a long run to get into the area, Liverpool would have been consigned to a third successive Anfield defeat.
While Liverpool was right to believe that settling for a point late on was not the right approach, it says everything about the precarious nature of the team at the moment that such an intervention was required.
Liverpool has generally looked more secure at the back in the last couple of games — albeit, it was coming from a low starting point — but at the same time, its creativity has dried up.
Against West Ham United, it needed a brilliant strike from Alexander Isak to break the deadlock, with the Swede netting from a shot that wasn't really even a half-chance for most players.
Arne Slot, head coach of Liverpool
Arne Slot, head coach of Liverpool (Image: Justin Setterfield/Getty Images))
Then, in the Sunderland game, while it racked up 23 attempts, Liverpool generated little more than one expected goal in total. The opportunities that it created were far from clear-cut.
"They didn't do anything that surprised me," Slot said during his post-match press conference. "Like I said, we know they can press really high and defend with 11 players around their box, that is what many teams do in the Premier League.
"That's the minimum you need to do — defend with 11 players — because this league has become so strong that it's very hard not to defend with 11 players."
Despite knowing what Regis Le Bris' team would look to do, Liverpool couldn't do much about it. It struggled to break down the low block and then threw bodies forward in an attempt to force some chaos, leaving itself exposed at the back.
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But it is not the case that Liverpool has to choose between being defensively secure or free-flowing in attack; it can be both at the same time, as it showed last season.
Right now, though, the balance between the two isn't quite right. The increased security in defense across the course of the game in general is a good sign, but the functionality of the attacking unit remains a concern.
When it pushed for the winner by having too many players in the opposition penalty area in the hope of forcing something over the line, only Chiesa's important interception stopped another costly defeat, which would have left the mood even more deflated.