Arne Slot's Liverpool Explained
Today, we dive deep into Arne Slot, and how he has set up Liverpool so far and changes that they might make in the future.
Welcome back to Football Latest.
Arne Slot has taken over as Liverpool manager after Jurgen Klopp’s departure, and today, we discuss the changes that he has made and the changes that we are likely to see implemented in his Liverpool squad in the coming weeks. From a rotating midfield to more youth involvement, Arne Slot is certainly an interesting manager, and today, we dive deep into how he will set up Liverpool.
Let's start with how Liverpool will set up when they are defending an opposition attack. So far, Arne Slot has used a flat back four of Alexander-Arnold, Van Dijk, Quansah and Robertson, the same as Klopp’s preferred back four before his departure, but the midfield is used quite differently. In their opening game where Liverpool faced Ipswich Town, Alexis Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch both started next to each other as Defensive Midfielders, but when Liverpool were on the attack, Mac Allister moved forwards to play next to Dominik Szoboszlai. Both of these players advanced so that they were playing on either side of Diogo Jota, the Liverpool striker, and in between the wingers. They almost formed a front five of Diaz and Salah on the wings, Szoboszlai and Mac Allister inside of them, and Jota playing down the middle of attack.
Slot knows that with this attacking formation, Gravernberch is left isolated, making teams able to bypass him easily and hit Liverpool on the counter attack. To leave Gravernberch less isolated, Trent pushes up from the defense into midfield and plays next to Gravernberch so that he can stop counter attacks easier and also so that Trent is in a good position to distribute long balls to all members of the attack. This leaves Liverpool’s shape to be a 4-2-3-1 when defending, but a bold 3-2-5 in the attack, only made possible by players like Virgil Van Dijk and how much Slot trusts him and others defensively.
One of the advantages of this formation is that in buildup play, Mac Allister, Szoboszlai, Gravernberch and Trent form a box midfield that Pep Guardiola has used in recent years to gain a numerical advantage in the midfield, and this box midfield was an important part of how Manchester City managed to lift the treble over a year ago. If Slot can manage to use and even build on this midfield idea, he can hope to remain competitive in the league and in cup competitions this season. One problem that Liverpool faced last season when trying to do this was injuries, and Slot is an expert to one of the solutions to this problem.
In his time at Feyenoord, Slot was known particularly for involving his youth players in first team action regularly and starting to bring them into the starting lineup over time, and Liverpool certainly have a breadth of talent from their youth academy on the bench. Slot developed many talents from Feyenoord’s academy, and if some of Liverpool academy graduates can be integrated into senior football well, this could be a source of massive squad depth for them, without spending a penny on new players.
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