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The goalkeeper really didn’t want to receive the ball at the waist. However, you have to play the cards that are dealt to you. Everything will be fine, the central will get me out of this, he thought.
Except the defender was lounging on the edge of the box and didn’t offer a decent passing option. The ball was lost and the locals immediately went ahead.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the above describes Aston Villa’s first goal in their remarkable 7-2 win over Liverpool. Adrian was clearly to blame for the goal, but Joe Gomez also did nothing to help him in his difficult position.
The second goal was perhaps even more damning for the young center-back. He showed Ollie Watkins inside and on his right foot, and doubled the home team’s lead.
Maybe it made no difference. The former Brentford player scored 10 goals with his right foot last season, plus seven with the left peg and eight with his head. He is a very balanced striker. However, regardless of how strong he was with each foot, directing him toward goal was not a smart defense.
For the second time in 11 league games since Liverpool were crowned champions, Gomez was unable to complete the match after having to be withdrawn early due to poor performance. The 23-year-old gave away a penalty, the only one he has conceded in the last three seasons, in an error that spread in the first half at Manchester City, and was replaced at half-time.
One of the two Opta-defined defensive mistakes Gomez made last season also occurred after the restart (via Whoscored) in the 4-0 win over Crystal Palace, and also did not cover himself in glory for Leeds’ first goal in the 2020/21 opener. He ran past the action and lost himself in no-man’s-land, unable to block Jack Harrison’s shot. Coincidence or not, Gomez hasn’t been at his best since the lockout hit the pause button last season.
And strangely enough at first, Gomez suffers sometimes for having Virgil van Dijk as a partner. While the best defender in the world is able to offer guidance and rescue a colleague at times during a match, his colossal presence means that opposing teams will inevitably target the other side of Liverpool’s defense.
Leeds threw 49 percent of their attacks at Anfield from the left side, Arsenal did 38 percent of theirs, while Villa attacked from the left side 41 percent of the time (via WhoScored). Whoever is in the right-back position is guaranteed to have their skills tested when van Dijk is around.
Chelsea also attacked on the left 39 percent of the time, but Gomez was absent due to injury. It would be easy to look at Liverpool’s performance at Stamford Bridge, where Fabinho replaced, and conclude that the Brazilian should play on the baseline more regularly. After all, the Reds picked up their only clean sheet of the season, and in what was, on paper at least, their toughest encounter yet.
And while the team’s clean sheets is obviously an overly simplistic measure, there is evidence in Gomez’s numbers that his form has recently dropped.
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While he’s never the most frequent tackler, they’re more of a last resort for a central defender after all, Liverpool’s No. 12 has yet to be successful this season, and has only tried one anyway (for FBRef). With the chaotic Reds defense we’ve seen at times recently, Gomez has certainly had more opportunities to strip attackers of the opposition.
Perhaps most worrying is the decrease in pressure. Gomez averaged 6.8 pressures per 90 minutes last season, but it dropped to 5.6 in the first weeks of 2020/21. It’s also interesting to note that when he did 4.1 per complete game in his third defensive period last period, he dropped to just 1.5.
He’s being asked to defend more on the court, and while blaming Liverpool’s defensive woes on his high defensive line is too one-dimensional an analysis, it could be that he’s hurting Gomez’s ability to do his job. It will be fascinating to see if the England international keeps his place in Liverpool for the upcoming Merseyside derby.
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