Match date: 22 February 2015

Liverpool have been in excellent form since the turn of the year and have significantly closed the gap between themselves and the other top four contenders. Southampton have been mostly consistent throughout the season and still find themselves in the battle for top four, but have struggled against sides in the league’s top seven positions.

Ronald Koeman made three changes to the side that drew West Ham 0-0 in their last match, with Ward-Prowse, Djuricic, and Targett coming into the side for Mane, Reed, and Gardos while Shane Long and Morgan Schneiderlin were fit enough for the bench. Koeman set his side out in a 4-2-3-1.

Brendan Rodgers made four changes to the side that beat Spurs 3-2 in their last league fixture with Lallana, Lovren, Allen, and Sterling into the starting XI while Gerrard, Moreno, Sturridge, and Sakho missed out. Rodgers continued with the 3-4-3 that has brought the Merseyside club its recent success.

Early Goal, Both Sides Press

Liverpool got off to an excellent start with a good move that saw Coutinho beat Forster from about 30 yards out with an excellent strike. From there, Liverpool obviously had the advantage. They were allowed to sit a bit deeper and were comfortable in letting Southampton have the ball. They did not, however, sit in a low block. Liverpool allowed Southampton the ball at the back, with Sterling only applying a limited amount of pressure on Yoshida and Fonte, but Liverpool’s midfield looked to press their counterparts as soon as the ball was played into the midfield area. Southampton’s build up play was slow and, at times, predictable, which allowed the likes of Henderson, Lallana, Coutinho, and Allen to read the ball movement and get to the receiver early. Below is a good example of this. Sterling applied pressure on Fonte, Lallana made sure that Yoshida was not an option, and Henderson pounced when Fonte plays the ball into Davis. Henderson conceded a foul on this occasion, but the intention was clear.

It was an effective trigger as it forced Southampton’s midfielders to play backward a number of times and allowed Liverpool opportunities on counter attacks.

Southampton did equally as well in their pressing, except they did it much further up the field, putting pressure on Can, Skrtel, and Lovren. This forced the centre backs to do one of two things, either play the ball back to Mignolet or play it long in the direction of Sterling. Mignolet’s passing out the ball were inconsistent and rarely made it to an open player and the long balls toward Sterling were usually dealt with easily by Fonte and Yoshida, which meant that Southampton generally got possession of the ball. Overall, Southampton had about 60% of the ball and a large majority of their possession came as the result of Liverpool being unable to effective work the ball out the back and having to resort to playing a hopeful ball forward, allowing the home team possession once again. Below you can see where Liverpool recovered the ball (a lot of it the moments coming in midfield) and Mignolet’s forced distribution.

Southampton Attack Wide, Moreno On

The system which Rodgers has Liverpool playing certainly has advantages, but defensively, it often times leaves the wide areas exposed against teams that play both wingers and have attacking full backs, like Koeman and Southampton have when playing their 4-2-3-1. When Southampton got on the ball and were able to build good attacks, many of their most dangerous attacks came in the wide areas as they were able to find overload situations with the winger and full back attacking Liverpool’s wing back, and a midfielder, such as Wanyama, drifting out wide into the space.

In particular, Southampton found most their success out wide on the right side of their attack. This was for a number of reasons, the first being that Lazar Markovic, Liverpool’s starting left wing back, often struggles defensively when in a wing back role, while Ibe, on the other side, looked much more capable in the defensive side of their role. The other reason is that Clyne was much more of an attacking threat than Targett on the other side for Southampton. Clyne, who has earned England call ups this year due to his form, did very well overlapping the winger or midfielder in front of him and put a lot of pressure on both Markovic and Emre Can. The former committed a late foul on Clyne early on and was lucky not to be booked when the England right back beat him near the byline. Can, too, was lucky not to get a foul called on him as Clyne knocked the ball by him and went to ground.

With the wide areas, and Clyne, in particular, a huge threat to Liverpool’s 1-0 lead, Brendan Rodgers replaced Markovic with Alberto Moreno at half time and this really helped solidify Liverpool’s back line and forced Clyne back. With Moreno on, Clyne struggled to get into the game as the Spanish left back stayed tight to Clyne, which forced him back and, in turn, allowed Moreno to also get further forward. Below is a good picture on this. Fonte is on the ball with no pressure. In the first half, Clyne would have been further up the field near the touchline and would have more than likely been an open outlet, but with Moreno on, Clyne is much deeper.

This nullified Clyne as an attacking option for Southampton and it was Moreno that intercepted a poor pass by Schneiderlain intended for Clyne that led to Liverpool’s second goal that really killed the game off. Below you can see the positions that Clyne received the ball in the first half compared to where he received in the second half.

Sturridge On, Southampton Plan B

With his side up 1-0 in the 62nd minute, Brendan Rodgers made an interesting change, bringing on Daniel Sturridge for Adam Lallana. The intent may have seemed clear; Rodgers wanted Liverpool to get a second to kill the game off, which they did about ten minutes after Sturridge’s introduction, but it also seemed to be a change to thwart Southampton’s style. The change typically would have seen Sterling drop alongside Coutinho in support of Sturridge, but instead it seemed to change the shape slightly, with Sterling and Sturridge up top, with both Coutinho and Henderson behind them and Allen as the holding midfielder. Liverpool looked much more like a 5-3-2 and the pressure from Sterling and Sturridge forced Southampton to play the ball longer in Pelle, despite the Southampton forward struggling to win aerial balls throughout the match.

Conclusion

Liverpool defended well from open play and Rodgers made the right adjustments to nullify Southampton’s best attacking options and force them to play to the weaker ones. The early goal certainly gave Liverpool a platform to put a good performance in and it was scored by, arguably, their best player on the pitch. Coutinho had a good game on both sides of the ball. He found a lot of space to the left of Wanyama throughout the match and kept the ball moving nicely, but he worked extremely hard to get behind the ball and put tackles in, even if he struggled to win the ball back at times.

Koeman and Southampton will have felt that they should have had at least two penalties after Joe Allen got in front of Djuricic and later Lovren handled the ball in the box. Koeman and his men ran out of ideas once Rodgers took away their Plan A and the Southampton boss will need to look for other ideas as teams start to play a bit deeper against them.