Bad times for Firmino & Man City: The winners & losers of Klopp's new-look Liverpool XI

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Much has been made of Liverpool’s different approach to matches this season.

For a while, many assumed that the Reds’ deadly attack of Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino were simply not firing on all cylinders. A World Cup hangover? Had Liverpool’s Champions League exploits during the last campaign taken its toll?

But 16 games into the Premier League season and Jurgen Klopp’s side are STILL unbeaten and are now top of the league after Manchester City fell to a 2-0 defeat at Chelsea last weekend. Things can’t really be that bad, can they?

Liverpool’s defensive statistics suggest a change. Klopp has tweaked something about this already impressive team and it’s working.

What we have seen from the Reds at the back this season is an absolutely monumental improvement. 16 league games in, Liverpool have conceded just six goals this season and have kept a whopping 10 clean sheets.

That’s impressive stuff, especially when you consider that leaking goals has been Liverpool’s Achilles heel for a number of years now.

£142 million pair Alisson and Virgil van Dijk will have helped with that, you might say? True, but they’re not the only reason.

Klopp has been extremely clever in the way that he has developed his team this term. One of the main changes has been the switch from the full throttle 4-3-3 to a more careful and reserved 4-4-1-1 system that is bringing in victory after victory.

Starman Mohamed Salah broke just about every record in the book for Liverpool in his debut season but Klopp has even been bold enough to change his role and it’s working.

We’ve rounded up the winners and losers of the excellent new 4-4-1-1 system that is working a treat for Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool this season.

Winner: Mohamed Salah

Klopp tinkered with the idea of using Salah as a forward on a number of occasions last season, but it has become a more permanent role for him for this term.

Salah netted a huge 44 goals in 52 appearances whilst playing as a narrow wide forward from the right side last season.

One of the main reasons why Klopp will have made this change in his system is so that his side can be more defensively solid.

If Salah was to play on the right of a midfield 4 then he’d be constantly tracking back and needed for a lot of defensive work. That’s not really his thing.

Instead, Salah has become the team’s striker. It’s a change that has taken everyone a while to get used to, but it’s working.

Another good thing about this is that opponents are going to have to rethink how to stop Salah again, just when they thought they’d worked out how to nullify his threat from the right.

The Egyptian’s hat-trick against Bournemouth took him to the top of the Premier League goalscoring charts having netted 10 league goals already and we think there’ll be a lot more to come, too.

Loser: Roberto Firmino

This is a bit of a harsh one, but this new system has seen the goal return of Liverpool’s no. 9 dry up a little.

Roberto Firmino was given the No. 9 shirt in the summer having enjoyed an excellent campaign as the Reds’ focal point, but rather ironically, Klopp has chosen this as the time to move him away from that role and into a reserved position.

Firmino is now being used in more of a no. 10 role behind Salah, a position where he made a name for himself at Hoffenheim and in his early days under Klopp at Liverpool.

It’s a role that he is more than used to, but you have to wonder whether he’d actually prefer to be deployed in the position where he was so deadly last season.

Aside from the 27 goals Firmino managed last year, his link-up play with the likes of Salah and Mane in that front three was sublime and he enjoyed dropping off to allow them to both run beyond him.

It was a dynamic that worked so well, but Klopp obviously feels that this change in his system will keep his side more solid and perhaps more likely to win titles.

Firmino has managed just six goals in 22 appearances so far this season.

Winner: Xherdan Shaqiri

Many didn’t quite understand the signing of Xherdan Shaqiri in the summer.

Why would he move to Liverpool? He wouldn’t be getting much game time after the season Salah, Mane and Firmino had, would he?

That, in itself, was wrong. Even if Klopp hadn’t changed the system, Shaqiri would have got a lot of minutes in the front three and has also been used as part of a midfield three at times.

But this 4-4-1-1 suits him perfectly. He was excellent on the right side of midfield in this system at Stoke and this is probably the position that he’s played most often in his career.

We’ve started to see more and more of what Shaqiri is about as the weeks have gone on at Liverpool. He has three goals and three assists from 12 appearances and looks a snip at £13 million.

We shouldn’t really be too surprised, in fairness. Shaqiri was excellent as a youngster at Bayern Munich and is a Champions League calibre player, without a doubt.

His inch-perfect chipped passes through to Salah in the attack are becoming a trademark of his and we get the feeling there’s a lot more to come from the Switzerland international at Anfield.

Loser: The Chelsea team of 2004/05

The Chelsea team that won the Premier League during the 2004/05 season are still the best the English top flight has seen when it comes to defensive records.

Managed by Jose Mourinho in his first season at the club, the Blues won the Premier League, the League Cup and reached the semi-finals of the Champions League.

Their solid defence gave them the best possible basis for success. Petr Cech, Paulo Ferreira, John Terry, Ricardo Carvalho and Wayne Bridge was Mourinho’s back five, with Claude Makelele anchoring things in midfield.

This team still hold the record for the most clean sheets in a Premier League season (25) as well as the record for the fewest goals conceded in a Premier League season (15).

But it looks as if this Liverpool side could give them a real run for their money, which is some achievement when you consider the quality of the teams in the English top flight nowadays.

After 16 games in that season, Chelsea had conceded six goals and kept 11 clean sheets. After 16 games this season, Liverpool have conceded six goals and kept 10 clean sheets.

The likes of Alisson and Van Dijk are making such a difference to this team, but Liverpool are also so much calmer both on and off the ball and seem to have mastered the best way to manage games.

This 4-4-1-1 system allows Klopp’s side to set up with two banks of four off the ball if needs be, but it can also flip into a 4-2-2-2 or 4-2-4 formation in attack. Flexibility.

Winner: Fabinho

Fabinho finally seems to have arrived at Liverpool after what was a difficult start to life at Anfield for the Brazilian.

Klopp gave the former Monaco man time to adapt to the Reds’ style of play in the early stages of this season, meaning he only made his full Premier League debut at the end of October.

The Liverpool boss mentioned at the time that Fabinho was very much used to playing in a system with two holding midfield players and still needed to adapt to play as the no. 6 in a midfield three.

For that reason, Klopp’s consistent use of the 4-4-1-1 has worked in Fabinho’s favour and has eased him into the rigours of Premier League football.

The busy festive schedule is giving the Brazil international a lot more time on the pitch and has allowed him to rotate with the likes of Jordan Henderson, Gini Wijnaldum, James Milner and Naby Keita.

In time, you’d expect Fabinho to nail down that role as Liverpool’s go-to holding midfield player and this is perhaps the system to use to get the best out of him.

Loser: Manchester City

Liverpool’s stunning early season form in the Premier League is likely to have holders Manchester City worried and with good reason too.

Pep Guardiola revealed on Tuesday that City only have 15 fit first-team players at the moment and said his side ‘ won’t survive’ with this amount of injuries in the Premier League. Music to Liverpool’s ears.

Danilo, Benjamin Mendy, Fernandinho, Kevin De Bruyne, David Silva and Sergio Aguero are all sidelined as it stands, which is far from ideal ahead of the busiest period of the season.

After snatching top spot from City last weekend, it will now be interesting to see how the Reds deal with the pressure of being at the summit of the Premier League table.

The switch to a 4-4-1-1, something that may have surprised Guardiola as it has a lot of people this season, will certainly stand them in good stead.

Klopp’s side no longer needs to bust a gut to get the goals to win games within the first 60-65 minutes. They are more measured and patient in their approach.

That should also help to keep the number of injuries down to a minimum, too, which would, of course, be crucial.

The post How does Liverpool’s new system work? The winners & losers of Klopp’s 4-4-1-1 appeared first on Squawka News.



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