Liverpool manager Arne Slot made a massive call against Sunderland, starting Mohamed Salah on the bench for the second game in a row and utilizing a 4231 with Florian Wirtz playing in the ten just off Alexander Isak as the key central attacker and the wingers pulled back.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the result was awful. Lethargic and lifeless, Liverpool were outplayed at Anfield in the first half. Only Wirtz provided the odd moment of solo inspiration. At the half, Cody Gakpo came off, Salah came on, and the shape shifted to a more usual 433.
While Salah didn’t score, he did at least look livelier on the right than Gakpo had on the left. More importantly, the entire side seemed energized compared to the first half. In the second, Liverpool were the better side—albeit they then conceded first in a moment of bad luck and bad defending.
“I don’t think there’s a magic fix right now, I can’t put my finger on just one thing,” former Liverpool striker Daniel Sturridge reflected on Sky Sports after the match. “I just think collectively the manager at this moment in time the manager doesn’t know his best eleven.
“Players are coming back and trying to find their fitness. Wirtz is trying to regain his sharpness; Isak isn’t completely at his level. Collectively, I think the manager is trying to figure it out—the players are trying to find their rhythm and the team is trying to find their rhythm.
“I think that everyone right now, including the manager probably, is seeking confidence and some assurances that _this_ is what I’m going to do, _this_ is the structure. And this is probably the first time today I think I’ve noticed the manager has really changed what he would typically do.”
In a way it seems damning we’re now into December and this Liverpool don’t have a clear tactical or structural identity. That they often look lost—and only occasionally click into gear when they seem to fall back on muscle memory, reverting to the style and structure of the first half of last season.
It also perhaps raises the question as to why Slot doesn’t simply embrace that. This is a group that, expensive new signings aside, knows how to play a certain way, to play well, and win. Their confidence is shot—that’s another issue entirely—but they look best when they revert to that.
“I think that they’ve gotta make a decision on what the structure is,” Sturridge added. “He needs to decide which players he wants to go with and then roll with that and even if then it doesn’t work, clearly from what we’ve seen the results just aren’t coming right now.”
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