The main team is absent and the start is slow, how does Liverpool respond?
Liverpool's thrashing of Bournemouth 4-0 was their biggest away win of the season, and that victory came without Salah and Alexander-Arnold.
Salah, who travelled to the Africa Cup of Nations with Egypt, has scored or assisted more than half of Liverpool's league goals in the league this week (22 of 43). Trent Alexander-Arnold is currently out injured and while he has fewer assists than in the past, the 25-year-old has realigned his role from 'right-back', which is essential to control the game from the middle and tear apart opposition defences.
Sunday was the seventh time since the start of the 2018-19 season that Liverpool fielded a Premier League starting line-up without the two of them. Six of those games were played away at Anfield, with five wins and one draw (at Chelsea last April). Although the time span is small, it is also a testament to Liverpool's ability to adapt when necessary.
More and more Premier League top coaches are sticking to their own style without regard to the players available in a particular match. Tottenham's Postecoglou is the most extreme example, but Arteta's Arsenal, De Zerbi's Brighton & Hove Albion and Unai Emery's Aston Villa – albeit in very different ways – are similarly dogmatic.
But Klopp doesn't fall into this category. When Salah and fellow striker Sadio Mane went to the Africa Cup of Nations two years ago, his Liverpool adapted, winning six of their seven games without them (including reaching the Carabao Cup final). Klopp called it "a very general situation".
Other players can play as wingers, but unlike Mo (Salah), it's impossible," Klopp said earlier this month. 'We use the players and their skills, that's the idea behind it. Do we want to play without Mo? No, but we'll find a solution. This coincides with what he said in December: "Every one of my long-term plans depends heavily on who can play."
20-year-old Academy graduate Conor Bradley, who played at right-back for the first time in the Premier League against Bournemouth, didn't cut in and held wide. Jota leads the front line, flanked by Nunez (left) and Luis Diaz (right).
It's not a fixed front trident, but against one of the most in-form and effective teams in the league – Bournemouth are particularly adept at pressing wide from the middle, refusing to pass through the middle and locking the team out of the box – Liverpool need to pass the ball to their strikers to keep them going.
Here's an example of Jurgen Klopp's side falling into a trap at the start.
Dominic Solanke pushed Liverpool's two centre-backs with strong central possession skills in the field. Justin Kluivert began to mark midfield fulcrum Maika before pressuring another centre-back, Ibrahima Konat, to force him on a long pass.
This makes the game a one-on-one.
Jota's bounce is outstanding, but at 5'10" (178cm), he'll struggle to shake off the height disadvantage against 6'4" (193cm) Chris Mepham. Liverpool's wingers were unable to get close to their number 9 and conceded goals on a number of occasions.
In this case, Liverpool conceded not only Trent Alexander-Arnold's passing range, but also his maneuvering ability. When he goes inside, opponents tend to mark him, moving their wingers to the inside, which opens up space for Liverpool's right wingers. They also missed Mohamed Salah's back-up and shots.
Klopp said: 'They [Bournemouth] have rhythm because it's important to have a good start and ours started the opposite. We put pressure on ourselves as soon as we started. They had corners (three in the first six minutes), throw-ins and then we were a little bit anxious. ”
Klopp added: 'We played a lot of long balls and we should have played between the lines. It's not good. 'More than 14 per cent of Liverpool's first-half passes were long balls (meaning passes from 35 yards or more) – not only was this the highest proportion of passes they had in the first half of all competitions this season, but only on two previous occasions (away at Manchester City and at home to Arsenal, both in April) they had played more long balls in the first half.
Liverpool's best moments of the first half came by splitting Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahim Konate even wider, forcing Bournemouth to try to press in more space and give the centre-backs more time to play long balls without pressure. Here's how Kluivert tries to press when Alisson passes, this time just outside the box.
Konate was again aiming for Jota, but now he had the space and time to make a straighter pass.
Jota controls the ball with his chest and turns. Further up front, Nunez and Diaz flanked the backline, while Jota played a high ball and passed it to Nunez.
The same thing happened a few minutes ago.
Here, Ibrahima Konate passed the ball to Jota when he was one-on-one with Mepam and the Portuguese striker turned around before passing a low ball to Nunez.
In the first half, Liverpool's fourth-to-last players with touches were Alisson and their front trident. All seven shots (3 for Bournemouth and 4 for Liverpool) came from outside the box, the first time since December 2019 (Bournemouth v Burnley) that there were no penalty areas in the first half of the Premier League.
Klopp said: 'At half-time we had two or three situations to show the lads how it should be, which helped a little bit with the change of position of the front trident. ”
He thinks Liverpool are "too set in stone". The changes to the forward line have better balanced the lineup. 'We have players who can play on the right wing, but which position is the best? What about other locations? On the left flank, Darwin was playing there, Joe [Gomez] was a little deeper, more protective and waited too much for long balls from the back – we weren't involved enough in the moment of possession. ”
We had to make a decision to have Darwin play his position (number nine), Lucho (Diaz's nickname) his position (left wing) and Diogo here (right wing). ”
The advantage of this is that Nunez can add run at the back or alternate with Diaz to complement Jota's tendency to play short balls. It paid off in four minutes.
Konate's long pass found the position of No. 8 Curtis Jones, who rotated deeper up front for much of the first half. Jones played the ball to Jota, who set up Nunez to put the ball in the back of the net.
The second goal 20 minutes later was similar: Jota played a long ball forward after a bounce in midfield and Nunez scrambled the ball ahead of Illia Zabarnyi, which was another benefit of playing him as a striker. Gakpo, who came on as a substitute for Diaz, received the ball and passed it to Jota. Liverpool scored four goals from 10 shots in the second half, but he shot from a very precise angle.
The third and fourth goals came from the right-back's crosses from just outside the touchline. First Bradley passed to Jota (who made a mistake before shooting) and then Gomez passed to Nunez at the back post. The goals were similar to those of Liverpool in the past when Trent Alexander-Arnold crossed from the wing, but the crosses from Bradley and Gomes suited them better than the cut-in. In a 2-1 win away at local rivals in the Carabao Cup in November, Gomez's movement at right-back was very effective.
This season, Liverpool have scored 15 times in the final 19 minutes of the league. This is the most goals scored by any Premier League team this season, already surpassing the figure of all clubs in 2022/23 for the whole season, as well as their tally of goals in the first half of the season (17).
That was probably not the way Klopp wanted to win, and he frankly admitted last night that when his side started the game with a mediocre start and improved after tactical and personnel changes, people would question the original game plan.
Liverpool's success has been underpinned by the depth of the squad, a strong academy and the recruitment of an increasing number of all-rounders. A young No.10 player who played as a two-pivot midfielder at Brighton before moving to Anfield last summer, Maika has played an excellent defensive role in the absence of Endo (who travelled to the Asian Cup with Japan) – no Liverpool player has made more interceptions against Bournemouth than the Argentine nine times in the last eight Premier League seasons.
Liverpool have made the third-most changes to their starting XI in the Premier League in 2023-24 (55) and have not fielded the same starting line-up since beating Bournemouth at home in August.
Gomez could play as a full-back. Jota, Nunez, Diaz and Salah can all play as a winger on one side or in the number 9 position. Gakpo is the most versatile player in the team, and he can play anywhere on the forward line or in the number 8 position. Harvey Elliott (a winger in Fulham's academy years but has now been redeployed to the number 8 position, while Jones has replaced James Milner as the panacea in the team.
The game against Bournemouth was not pretty, and it's fair to say that Liverpool weren't as good, fluid or disruptive as they were when they won the title in 2019-20 – they were already leading at half-time in 24 of their 38 league games that season.
But it's unrealistic to set the bar so high, and there are other ways to maintain success. In the long run, the team cannot and will not remain the same.
Liverpool made a big shake-up in midfield last summer, and one of Liverpool's biggest strengths was tactical open-mindedness. They have a chance to make it four in a row this season (Premier League, FA Cup, Carabao Cup, Europa League) and tactical adaptability will maximise their chances.