Match date: 1 March 2014

Southampton are the only side to have beaten Liverpool at home this season, recording a 1-0 win at Anfield. Since that time, however, Southampton have seemingly peaked and sustained. Last year, one of Liverpool’s poorest matches was a 3-1 defeat at St. Mary’s.

Pochettino made just one change to the starting XI that lost against West Ham, bringing Dejan Lovren back into the side for Yoshida.

Rodgers made just one change to his XI as well, with Joe Allen getting a spot in midfield ahead of Raheem Sterling, but more importantly for Liverpool was the change in shape.

Liverpool’s Midfield

During Brendan Rodgers’ time at Liverpool, we’ve seen a change in style, from possession based play to a more direct style. We’ve also seen a number of different systems from Liverpool throughout this season as the need to fit Suarez and Sturridge in the side, as well as injuries, have seen Rodgers’ move away from a 4-3-3.

In the home defeat to Southampton earlier this season, the Liverpool midfield, consisting of both Lucas and Gerrard, were overrun by a more dynamic, fluid, and physical Southampton, not to mention that Liverpool were forced to play four centre backs across the back on the day. Taking what he learned from that match and applying it to this match against Southampton, Rodgers opted to set up his midfield in a diamond. Gerrard continued in his position in front of the back four, with Joe Allen on the left in front of him and Jordan Henderson on the right. Coutinho played at the top of the diamond behind both Suarez and Sturridge.

Much like Real Sociedad did against Barcelona recently, Liverpool’s diamond made it incredibly hard for Southampton to play through the middle of the pitch and were forced to rely on playing in the wide areas. Liverpool were content with allowing Southampton large spells of possession as they were able to control where they played the ball. The two top passers of the match, Morgan Schneiderlin and Jose Fonte, struggled to pass the ball forward and connect with the advanced midfield players and were instead forced to play the ball into the wide areas.

With a midfield diamond, tactically, it leaves the full backs more exposed than if they have a winger or wide midfielder in front of them. Southampton were forced to play into the wide areas, but have quality in those areas with Adam Lallana and Jay Rodriguez, as well as Luke Shaw at full back coming forward. Liverpool wanted Southampton to play the ball into these areas, but rather than leave the full backs open to 2 v 1 situations, Jordan Henderson and Joe Allen would both push wide to support and make tackles higher up the pitch. Below, you can see the majority of Liverpool’s tackles and interceptions were made in the wide areas of the pitch.

The diamond also allowed both Joe Allen and Coutinho to play alongside Henderson and Gerrard. In the Swansea match, Joe Allen’s introduction allowed Liverpool to control the ball much better and see the match out.

Luke Shaw Attacks

Despite Liverpool wanting positioning themselves to allow Southampton to play in the wide areas, they initially struggled to contain Luke Shaw as the young full back made good overlapping runs on the left side of Southampton’s attack. Both Joe Allen and Jordan Henderson would push forward to try to win the ball back and once Southampton were able to bypassing their pressing, it left John Flanagan and Glen Johnson exposed in the full back positions and made it so Steven Gerrard had to drift wide, away from his central position in front of the back four, to cover for Allen and Henderson.

Above, you can see just how much space Shaw was afforded at times as the Liverpool diamond shifted as a unit. The full back got forward into the space at the right times and was heavily involved as Southampton looked to respond to Liverpool’s opening goal. Between that goal and the end of the first half, Shaw put in a few good passes, particularly to Lambert and Lallana, but the Southampton forwards were unable to make the most of their chances throughout the match, which Pochettino highlighted in his post-match comments.

Sturridge and Suarez

Recently, Rodgers has had Liverpool playing in a 4-3-3 with either Sturridge or Suarez on the right, especially in ‘big’ matches like Arsenal and Everton. This obviously meant that one of them would be doing more defensive work and wouldn’t be as high up the pitch to help quickly break on teams as often. Having them both play up top against Southampton did not mean that they did not have their defensive responsibilities, however. The strikers were still the first to press the ball when Southampton had it in their own half and were responsible for blocking passing lanes from the centre backs to the midfield players, forcing the ball to be played wide to Chambers and Shaw, which allowed the likes of Henderson, Coutinho/Sterling, and Allen to join in the pressing.

With a diamond in the midfield for Liverpool, however, both Suarez and Sturridge were able to position themselves as high up the pitch as the Southampton back line would allow, with both looking to drop to receive the ball at different times. Against Lovren and Fonte, Suarez and Sturridge were essentially in a 2 v 2 situation when Southampton had possession of the ball in Liverpool’s half and the Southampton centre backs struggled to cope with the movement of the Liverpool duo. Both Suarez and Sturridge would drift into wide areas and run into channels, with Sturridge also making good runs in behind, as Liverpool looked to break quickly at every given opportunity. Below, you can see just where they received their passes.

Changes

Pochettino made the first change, brining Gaston Ramirez on at half time for Steven Davis. Ramirez is much more of an attacking threat and contributed well in his opening minutes on the pitch, but left the Southampton holding midfielders more exposed against Liverpool’s midfield four. At this point as well, Rodriguez was playing very much alongside Lambert, with one dropping into midfield and the other staying higher up the pitch. While Davis drifted to the right to fill the space left by Rodriguez in the first half, Ramirez very much played from the right rather than inside out.

Rodgers’ first change was bringing on Sterling for Coutinho, a move that would usually mean that Liverpool were going to revert to a 4-3-3, however, Liverpool continued with the diamond midfield and Sterling simply replaced Coutinho behind the front two. His pace added another dimension to Liverpool’s attack as they became even more fluid. Sterling played slightly higher up the pitch than Coutinho had and it allowed Suarez to drop a bit deeper to receive the ball and Sterling to use his pace to get in behind the Southampton defenders. Immediately, Sterling was the highest up the pitch when pressing and of course got his goal with his first touch.

Conclusion

Southampton didn’t play as poorly as a 3-0 scoreline suggests, they were perhaps unlucky with Liverpool’s first goal but should have been more efficient with their own scoring chances, through Lallana, Lambert, and Rodriguez.

Liverpool played decently and moved up to second place in the Premier League with Rodgers exhibiting another tactical move that helped determine the match, something he has certainly improved upon during his time at Liverpool. Does this win make Liverpool genuine title contenders?