This season has been a tale of two headlines regarding Liverpool’s performance levels.
On the one hand we have the surging attack of the Reds, which is at a historic level of prolificacy. With 90 goals scored, the Reds are scoring at an absolutely blistering pace not seen by Liverpool fans since before the inception of the Premier League. On the other, we have a defense which has been heavily criticized for its leaky tendencies. Currently, Liverpool have conceded 40 goals, just as much as Arsenal and Hull City, yet more than Crystal Palace, Man United, Everton, Manchester City, and Chelsea. Mind you, this after some solid defensive displays by Liverpool which saw three clean sheets in six matches, and five goals against total in that time.
You read that last sentence correctly. Three clean sheets in six matches. And the latest match against West Ham could have yielded another clean sheet if not for the controversial goal which resulted after a blatant foul on Simon Mignolet. This defensive form is a far cry from the Liverpool we have seen all season. But what is the reason behind this change in Liverpool’s defensive effort? A major factor is the stability of the back four for Liverpool.
Let’s look way back to the beginning of the season. Liverpool started off the season in pretty good form, with three consecutive clean sheets, a draw, a loss, and two wins right after. The only loss was a one-nil loss to Southampton, and in that seven game span a total of five goals were conceded. What’s interesting to note is that they stopped yielding clean sheets once Glen Johnson sprained his ankle in the Manchester United match. After this match the team drew to Swansea then lost to Southampton. Then, once they recuperated and put together a couple of wins, Jose Enrique injured his knee, and furthered the teams’ fullback woes. They drew to Newcastle the match after Enrique was injured, and with ally Cissokho out since the beginning of August, any viable options at fullback were essentially gone.
Brendan Rodgers put together a makeshift 3-5-2 setup to accommodate the lack of fullback coverage, and it sort of worked, but left major gaps in the defense. This was exposed when the team faced Arsenal in this formation, with Kolo Toure, Martin Skrtel, and Mamadou Sakho serving as the three centre-backs while Jon Flanagan and Aly Cissokho played as wing-backs. While full-back injuries were the tale of the first half of the season, centre-back injuries dominated the second season. Both Sakho and Agger were out in different stretches of the second half, with both of them being injured at one point, forcing Kolo Toure to step up his defensive responsibilities (we all know how that turned out). Things only got worse when Johnson turned up injured again, with Rodgers taking him out “indefinitely”.
Recently the fitness of the team has been returning, and finally Rodgers has had options in the back four to tinker with. All of a sudden, some defensive stability has finally arrived. And besides the Cardiff away match, which saw Liverpool give up three goals, the team’s defensive efforts have been impressive with multiple clean sheets in the past few matches.
I think this constant shifting of the back four has had a major effect on the defense, not only tactically, but psychologically. A consistent dynamic has not been able to form until now, with nearly all of our essential defensive pieces intact. With this newfound stability, I think Liverpool supporters will have a lot less to complain about for the rest of the season.
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