Digging Deeper Into Liverpool’s 2-1 Victory Over Brighton & Hove Albion
With a victory over Brighton in the books, we take a closer look at what it all means for the Reds.
Liverpool come from behind to beat Brighton 2-1 at Anfield. It’s a big win as it continues to keep pressure on Arsenal and Manchester City - both of whom lost this weekend - in the title race. More, it sees Liverpool nearly to the end of this run of fixtures that many folks had identified as their most difficult (with the 4 match stretch that featured Arsenal and Brighton twice, arguably the trickiest of the spell) not only holding the line, but continuing to build on the successful start to the year.
It was certainly not an easy match, with the Reds needing to fight through a feisty and talented Brighton team to claim the points. But it did get the job done. Now, let’s take a deeper look at a few pieces that stood out.
Winners and Losers
Winners
Liverpool’s Second Half Adjustments It feels a recurring theme that Liverpool find ways to address and counter what the opposition is throwing at them. And in nearly every match this season, that’s worked a peach. Saturday was no different as Arne Slot made changes to the system, made key substitutions, and the players themselves provided a response that stood in deep contrast to the what felt a disjointed first half. Curtis Jones, Luis Díaz, and Joe Gomez all had strong performances as substitutes (though, Gomez’s introduction was out of necessity due to Ibrahima Konate’s injury as opposed to being a tactical shift) and not only changed the game, but displayed what looks a recurring trait in successfully managing the game once the go-ahead goal was achieved.
Liverpool’s Attack (When Behind) When Liverpool need a goal, the team still knows how to turn on the pressure. There were times, especially as they were chasing the result, that the Liverpool attack looked as inevitable and relentless as under Klopp. Those times also coincided with when the team looked most rickety at the back. Go figure.
Losers
Liverpool’s First Half An obvious next phase of assessing Arne Slot’s Liverpool is to see what happens when clubs have more data with Liverpool in their preferred set-up and are able to prod and poke and suss out ways to counter it. That’s what made this match, in my opinion, so tricky: even with the heavy rotation across both matches, a back-to-back with the same opponent will always risk showing your tactical hand. The way that first half played out feels like a minor example of what the league can look like as team’s catch up to Slot’s tactical approach.
This isn’t a concern per se, especially given that Slot remains incredibly adept at making those second half adjustments. But it is one of the evergreen challenges in achieving the goal of hoisting the Premier League trophy and bears keeping an eye on.
Pervis Estupiñan This might be overly harsh given that the Ecuadorian left-back managed to hold Mohamed Salah relatively well through most of the match. He was also terrific - along with Kaoru Mitoma - at playing the hard-nosed if slightly aggravating style of football that won’t win the hearts of too many fans of opposition teams but would absolutely be something that endears him to Brighton supporters. Still, with a player of Salah’s quality, you need to remain switched on for the full 90 minutes and, unfortunately, he showed Salah enough of an opening to allow the Egyptian forward onto his preferred left-foot at an absolutely gorgeous angle. He’ll look back, I’m sure, at that moment with some regret.
Dissecting the Narrative
With only two more matches until the November International Break, Liverpool once more find themselves in pole position and a very good chance to be there once league play resumes. Which is exactly where most fans would have hoped they’d be, but given the chatter prior to this stretch of fixtures, many certainly believed it wouldn’t be a given. Job’s obviously not done, but it’s hard not to stand on this side of the results - especially given what happened to Arsenal and Manchester City - and not look back at the handwringing with a bit of a wry smile.
I’ve contended that I’m not sure this set of results would be more meaningful to me as a supporter and someone who obsesses analyzes over the state of Liverpool Football Club. It would be, for me, an opportunity to continue to look at the overall trajectory of the project which, through the start of this run, genuinely felt like it was overachieving even with the vaunted expectations of fandom.
It does, like any decent dump of data into a set, help harden some of those early assessments. Assessments like this club is more stingy in terms of giving away chances. Or that, when given a lead, it’s incredibly hard for folks to reverse. Liverpool look much, much more solid in terms of their playing base and I think we’ve gotten the necessary information to feel secure in that.
Are they good enough to win a title? I think it’s always too early to make pronouncements, but if you’ll allow me a moment to be a bit of a pedant, I’d say focusing on “good enough” is key. Because I do think that, as it stands, this squad should feel confident in any contest regardless of the opponent. There’s quality, experience, and leadership in all departments. Folks on the team have climbed these mountains before and know the path.
We also know, though, that there’s lots that involved in a league campaign that goes beyond what you can control; an injury spell here combined with an atypical run of form from a key opponent might be the only difference because the margins in global football broadly and at the top of the league specifically are razor thin.
Which all adds up to this: winning the title and making such predictions is a fool’s errand at the moment. What is real and tangible is that Liverpool are top of the league and there are no good reasons to believe that position is unearned.
Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com
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