After last week’s draw at Manchester United, Liverpool returned to winning ways with a 2-1 success over Tony Pulis’ West Bromwich Albion. The Hard Tackle explores some key talking points for the Reds from yet another entertaining performance.
Although they made heavy weather of it in the end, Liverpool managed earn a 2-1 victory against West Brom and in doing so, evicted themselves off the Tony Pulis curse. Saturday was the first victory for the Reds against a side led by the Welshman in over 5 years. Jurgen Klopp’s side have now remained unbeaten since their loss at Turf Moor against Burnley in August.
It’s, therefore, no surprise that the German and the club’s loyal army of supporters are flirting with dreams of a title charge this campaign. The Hard Tackle looks back on the clash at Anfield and picks out some key points worth discussing and addressing for the Reds ahead of their showdown against Tottenham on Tuesday in the EFL Cup.
‘Baller’ Coutinho
While Philippe Coutinho’s ability and brilliance has never been in question during his time at Liverpool, his consistency certainly has. The Brazilian’s sporadic brilliance often frustrated fans in the past but there’s nothing supporters can speak against him this campaign. The 24-year-old has been at his creative best in nearly every game he’s featured in this season and has been among the players central to Liverpool’s free-scoring form.
.@Phil_Coutinho: MotM vs West Brom @LFC pic.twitter.com/BaOaE4nmBk
— WhoScored.com (@WhoScored) October 22, 2016
That was once again on display on Saturday evening as his cheeky dummy in the build-up to the first goal set Emre Can free before Firmino crossed the ball in for Sadio Mane to bury it into the back of the net. He followed that with a brilliantly taken goal in the 34th minute to double Liverpool’s advantage to further stamp his importance to Klopp’s side.
With 5 goals and 3 assists in 10 games so far, Coutinho, along with his Brazilian team-mate Roberto Firmino, is lighting up Anfield with stellar performances week-in and week-out. One would only hope this blossoming partnership develops into something special for Liverpool in their bid to fight for silverware.
Sadio on the ‘Mané’
With a goal and an assist on the night, Sadio Mane had yet another good outing for the Reds as he once again established how big a signing he has been for Jurgen Klopp. The Senegalese forward has scored 4 goals for Liverpool while assisting 4 others in just 8 games. His pace, creativity on the ball and tenacity has given the Reds an extra dimension in attack, the results of which are more than evident in the recent displays.
The 24-year-old had one of those forgettable outings as a Liverpool player last week against Manchester United, but did well to recover this week with a typically marauding performance. That said, Mane really has to work on his consistency if he is to achieve big things with Liverpool. His style of play is intensive and hence he brings a lot to the fore when at his best, which is why the Reds will demand a measure of consistency from their summer recruit going forward.
Eviction of the Tony Pulis curse
The victory on Saturday gave Liverpool a rare taste of success over Tony Pulis with the Reds extracting a result over the Welsh boss for the first time in almost five years. In his managerial time at Stoke City, Crystal Palace and West Brom, Pulis has always managed to tactically frustrate the Reds and make it difficult for them to extract a result.
Obviously, the most bitter of those experiences for Liverpool came during their shocking capitulation at Selhurst Park in 2014, when Crystal Palace wiped out a 3-0 half-time lead in a matter of eighteen 2nd-half minutes, thanks to Dwight Gayle’s heroics. The staggering result virtually dumped Liverpool out of the title race in the penultimate game-week.
Pulis’ much maligned long-ball tactics were the subject of discussion prior to the game with Klopp even questioned as to how he would approach West Brom’s style of football. While the German jokingly stated that his side were prepared for it after facing Manchester United, he was right about preparation being the key for such encounters. The fact that Liverpool managed to keep possession for the majority of the game and dominate the Baggies, hence affording them very few snipes at goal, spoke volumes about their preparation for the encounter.
Set-piece troubles continue
The final score-line of 2-1 doesn’t paint the entire picture of what panned out at Anfield on Saturday and that is all down to Ben Foster’s incredible performance in goal and the Reds’ continued malice with set-pieces. All set to finish the game at the top of the Premier League, a moment of lapse in defence for Liverpool gave McAuley a crucial goal and West Brom hope of extracting a point.
Liverpool’s defence has undergone an upgrade over the past few seasons with the arrivals of the likes of Nathaniel Clyne and Joel Matip. While the new acquisitions have added a much-needed stability to that back-line, the Merseyside club have continued to struggle dealing with set-pieces. The Reds follow a zonal marking system and it’s the deficiencies of the same that seem to affect them every single time they are out defending the corners and free-kicks.
Klopp must attempt to enforce a man-marking system as it would give the players certainty over their duties in the box. Quite often, we see multiple defenders marking the same player leaving others unmarked and affording them a clear shot on goal. The German has stated that clean-sheets aren’t an issue when the team is winning, but the 2011-2012 Premier League season would beg to differ with that. Titles can be won on as fine a margin as goal-difference and Liverpool will have to shore up their defence and ensure they don’t leak too many goals.
Title challenge on?
Managers preferably try to shy away from any title talk early on in the season in-order to reduce the media spotlight on them and their teams. Claudio Ranieri did that last time during Leicester City’s fairy-tale run and Klopp has done that too early on in this season.
However Saturday’s victory had even the German boss buzzing and talking title ambitions. Liverpool are among the teams of the Premier League at the moment and given the tough run of fixtures they were provided to start with for the season, not too many would have fancied them to sit joint top in the league standings towards the end of October.
In 9 games so far, the Reds have only been upstaged at Burnley and have come away with impressive victories against Arsenal, Chelsea and Leicester City while settling for draws against Tottenham and Manchester United. With no European football to worry about unlike their competitors, Liverpool can wage a serious charge for the title and a relatively kind fixture list up until Christmas adds further weight to that claim.
The ensuing 7 games after West Brom will certainly have Klopp’s team touted as favourites to come away with the goods and it could easily turn out to be a defining period in their season. The league crown has eluded the Reds for 26 years now and only time will tell if Jurgen’s men can finally break the duck but till then we may as well witness this potentially humdinger of a league season take it’s due course.
