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The Reds’ disastrous performance at Villa Park was just the latest in a series of troubling performances for the defending Premier League champions.
Liverpool’s 7-2 loss to Aston Villa on Sunday cannot be dismissed as a mere anomaly.
These are not the times we live in and in fact, as the Premier League results get weirder and stranger, there is a chance that something was unconsciously broken.
Eerily empty stadiums have certainly changed the sport and all of a sudden the forces that kept us committed to a “normal” number of goals in a game are gone.
When Villa went 3-1 up in 35 minutes, the feeling hung in the air that four or five more goals would come. The seal of normality has been broken, and with no preseason to get fit or fans to witness it, it seems the Premier League will continue to rain goals.
That is likely to have dire consequences for Liverpool, whose defensive setup in the past two years has been based on fear from the opposition.
It was thought that Leeds United may have permanently shattered our perception of Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool with his opening day performance. By fearlessly throwing bodies forward, Marcelo Bielsa sent Joe Gomez into a tailspin and even made Virgil van Dijk look confused, maybe even a little scared.
Villa only confirmed that notion.
Liverpool have conceded 11 league goals this season. Three can be attributed to direct unforced errors, but all 11 were avoidable and the result of poor defense by individuals.
What is happening with Klopp’s side, first and foremost, is the breaking of the illusion that they are unbeatable, and that could change everything.
After all, perception is an underrated force in soccer and, in the case of champions, it leads to fear, hesitation, and matches as anticipated conclusions.
Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United thrived on this at Old Trafford. Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City enjoyed it for two years until Norwich City won 3-2 in 2019 and the castle walls fell.
Liverpool, it seems, has just had its moment.
But the successes of Leeds and Aston Villa are not simply a case of a courageous counterattack. They focused on specific weaknesses and exposed flaws that are emerging in the Klopp setup.
The most glaring flaw at the moment is Liverpool’s loss of high press. Some critics believe that the culprit is Klopp’s ultra-high defensive line, but that’s a misunderstanding of the situation.
To play this style of attacking football, Liverpool must be compressed between the lines at all times, so when the defensive line is pushed up, the midfield and front lines must press hard, squeezing space and crushing counterattacks in the fountain. .
Currently that is not happening, so the defense is caught with balls in the back; The little pressure on the opposing midfielder means he has time to wait for a running back and time to pick a pass.
This happened constantly in the Leeds game, as Kalvin Phillips found himself with acres of space to spray long balls into the canals, leading directly to Jack Harrison’s goal.
For Leeds second and third, Stuart Dallas and Helder Costa also had enough room to throw balls overhead.
Villa also benefited from poor pressure from Liverpool, albeit with a slightly different way of getting into the final third.
Dean Smith clearly targeted Liverpool’s right side knowing there would be room behind prowler Trent Alexander-Arnold and that Gomez is more vulnerable than Van Dijk, with Ross Barkley, Jack Grealish and Olli Watkins instructed to interact predominantly on Villa’s left.
However, unlike Leeds, Villa did not seek to play direct balls above Liverpool’s back line, instead using the lack of pressure from the visitors to sweep passes diagonally to the opposite flank.
Klopp’s narrow 4-3-3 means there are inevitably large open patches of grass on the wing that are currently not being used by the team in possession, and Villa made sure to hit the left wing with low passes from John McGinn and Matty. Cash, both of which were not closed quickly enough.
From McGinn’s pass for Grealish’s second goal to Cash’s forward that put Barkley on goal just before the third of the night, this pattern played out with alarming consistency.
Liverpool’s big concern is that Villa and Leeds have set a model that all other clubs will follow: be brave to evade the press, throw bodies forward and attack Liverpool’s right wing, and this team may be defeated.
Things, however, are not as bad as they seem.
Liverpool’s expected goals (xG) against for the season is 5.45, a number 5.55 lower than his actual tally, while Klopp can reasonably point to three cruel deflections against Villa and the fact that Leeds scored in three of his six kicks to goal.
So only minor adjustments may be required to get things back into place.
Improving the players’ fitness should increase their collective pressure back to 2019-20 levels (and if it’s a mindset thing, surely a 7-2 loss will set the change back), but in the meantime, Klopp may consider a defense a little deeper. line until the rest of your team has shown that you are back in shape.
As for individual mistakes that have been made, Gomez and Adrián look like championship players this season, and confidence and form are assumed to return once order is restored in the press.
A sense of composure should return when Jordan Henderson also returns from injury. And yet one feels that things will not be so easy this season.
Nothing about 2020-21 has followed the sensible or logical narrative. Progression to the mean is not a fact, not in a year like this and not after expectations, illusions and invisible barriers have been erased.
Losing 7-2 changes you. Something permanent will change. Liverpool fans should expect him to act as a wake-up call and return his heavy pressure in central midfield.
If not, if the pressureless atmosphere of empty stadiums has truly made football a soulless training session, then things will never be the same for Klopp and Liverpool.
Is it too early to mention your Borussia Dortmund who collapsed from exhaustion after two years at the top in Germany? Probably.
But football is fickle and prone to the kind of shared psychological reinvention of the truth that has led to a series of crazy Premier League results so far this season.
