After a disappointing performance last season that witnessed a failure to qualify for the UEFA Champions League, Liverpool are having a magnificent 2023/24 English Premier League season so far.

They are at the top of the table after the end of game week 26 with 60 points, in the last eight of the FA Cup, and have already won the League Cup.

Although they lost most of their senior players, Jürgen Klopp’s side maintained a stunning performance in the last couple of months.

Our tactical analysis and scout report will provide an analysis of how Liverpool adjusted their tactics to overcome their injury crisis.

Liverpool vs Chelsea

Towards the end of January, The Reds were ready to host Chelsea without their only defensive midfielder, Wataru Endō, due to his international duty.

Besides, Mohammed Salah, who picked an injury with the Egyptian national football team, and their main fullbacks Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson.

During the build-up phase, Liverpool maintained their 3-2-2-3 shape.

Ibrahima Konaté, Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez as the back three may be joined by Alisson Becker, along with Alexis Mac Allister And Curtis Jones forming the double pivot.

Mauricio Pochettino’s side pressed in a 4-2-3-1 shape, Cole Palmer and Conor Gallagher are marking Mac Allister and Jones by passively pressing the centreback on the ball.

Raheem Sterling and Noni Madueke are pressing Konaté and Gomez.

That pressing scheme was easily exploited by the home side.

Here, Palmer tried to press van Dijk, who found Jones as the third man using Mac Allister.

Meanwhile, Chelsea’s double pivot Enzo Fernández and Moisés Caicedo are marking Liverpool’s advanced midfielders of the box shape, Dominik Szoboszlai and Diogo Jota.

One way they could play through the press was, here, Palmer again trying to press van Dijk; Gomez joined Mac Allister in the midfield, dragging Madueke with him.

Jones (in yellow) rotates with Luis Díaz and moves to pin Axel Disasi, and Díaz can easily receive from van Dijk.

Liverpool’s continuous player rotation is magnificent in maintaining the shape.

Consequently, made it very tough for any opposition to press them.

Now Szoboszlai drops with Mac Allister and drags Enzo, which leaves Caicedo in a 2v1 against Jones, and Jota, alongside Conor Bradley, is the one who provides the width from the right side, pinning Ben Chilwell and allows Jota to be narrowly positioned.

Konaté passes to Jota, who can receive aided by Darwin Núñez position to pin both centre-backs.

Jota plays the ball in the space for Bradley as Chilwell is forced to press Jota.

Moreover, using the slow passes as the pressing trigger between Alisson and van Dijk dragged both Palmer and Gallagher, so Enzo and Caicedo had to jump on the pivot of Gomez and Mac Allister.

Madueke had to press van Dijk, leaving Jones (shadowed), who rotated with Gomez, while Disasi is marking Díaz.

Darwin played the ball to the free Jones down the left-hand side.

That gradually forced the away side backwards to more of a mid-press.

Here, Enzo and Caicedo are again focusing on Szoboszlai and Jones.

Jota drops to overload the midfield and receives from the backline.

The wide presence of Bradley here was essential to pin Chilwell, so he hesitates to press Dominik, and Jota finds Conor widely.

As shown below, Gomez (in yellow) joins to overload the midfield while Mac Allister finds Bradley, who is free on the right side and gives his winger the option to be narrow.

That wide presence from Bradley was very impressive, allowing both Szoboszlai and Jota or Diaz to be central and overload the midfield, which was reflected during their third goal.

Szoboszlai’s central run to drag Badiashile, allowing Virgil to play his trademark diagonal ball towards Bradley and Conor’s cross, was successfully met by Dominik.

Notice the 3v3 inside the box with Jota coming free from behind.

Nevertheless, The home side also benefited during their final third phase.

Konaté passes widely to Bradley, and Chilwell steps to press him, leaving Chelsea in a back three line.

When the ball returns to Mac Allister, who can receive it as Caicedo is dragged by Díaz, who rotated with Jones.

Alexis’ brilliant switch found Jones in space.

Again, van Dijk slowly passed to Konaté, which triggered Enzo to press, leaving Jota free and combining with Mac Allister again with Caicedo being pinned by Szoboszlai.

Alexis’ brilliant pass made an excellent chance to Darwin.

Moving on to their away game against Brentford.

The away side had a massive boost with the return of Endō, but unfortunately, they lost Szoboszlai due to injury.

They maintained the 3-2-2-3 shape against a 5-3-2 low-block from Thomas Frank’s side.

The home side front two, Ivan Toney and Neal Maupay, are passively pressing the back three while being more focused on closing down on the double pivot Endō and Mac Allister.

With a midfield of three Christian Nørgaard, Mathias Jensen and Vitaly Janelt to protect the area, Liverpool tried to overload through Jones and Jota.

Dropping of Endō (in yellow) between van Dijk and Konaté, which altered both Toney and Maupay.

Virgil found Mac Allister, who received, and Nørgaard stepped to press him.

Nørgaard movement freed a space for Díaz to receive central who rotated with Jones.

Meanwhile, Janelt is pinned by Jota.

Díaz went widely for Bradley.

Worth mentioning again that Bradley’s wide position allowed both Jota and Diaz to stay centrally pinning both centre-backs so Bradley could receive from Díaz again.

And Bradley had the first big chance of the game and also noticed Jones’s wide positioning.

Unfortunately, once again, the Reds lost both Jota and Jones in the first half to injury.

Ryan Gravenberch came on for Jones and played almost the same role.

On the other hand, during the second half, Bradley (in yellow) switched more to overload the midfield with Endō and Mac Allister, moving the Argentinian midfielder to a more advanced position on the right side with the presence of Salah down the line.

Bradley dragged Janlet with him and freed Alexis to receive from Virgil, so Brentford’s centre-back Ben Mee stepped in to press him, which left a space behind him.

That was brilliantly exploited by a third-man run from Bradley and made an excellent scoring situation.

The League leaders have shown an astonishing adaptation so far, missing many of their starting eleven players.

In contrast, they failed to seal even a point in the Emirates Stadium against Arsenal.

What went wrong against Arsenal?

In addition to the absence of Salah and Endō, They also lost Núñez, Szoboszlai and Bradley against The Gunners and couldn’t compensate against the amazing high-pressing from the home side.

Arsenal had a 4-4-2 high-pressing shape, Martin Ødegaard and Kai Havertz pressed both centre-backs.

Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli are marking the full-backs.

Furthermore, Declan Rice and Jorginho pressed Mac Allister and Jones.

At the time, Gomez joined Mac Allister to form the pivot.

Rice immediately pressed him as Gomez was not comfortable on the ball, which forced the away side to lose possession frequently.

It is worth mentioning that Arnold started that game, so it seems to be a fundamental question: Why didn’t he invert as usual instead of Gomez?

Well, in the absence of Bradley, Szoboszlai, Salah.

No one had stretched the field from the right-hand side except Trent.

Gravenberch substituted Dominik in the right advanced midfielder position, but that was far from his ability to play.

Here, Trent finds Mac Allister, who escaped the marking and played to Ryan, who couldn’t control the ball.

Additionally, the presence of Coady Gakpo centrally, not Darwin, didn’t pin the opposition’s backline enough to create a space for the advanced midfielders between the lines, as Gakpo prefers to come short and call for the pass.

Liverpool found the solution through Jones, who dropped with Mac Allister, leaving Gomez out wide, which made Rice hesitate to press him as he is more comfortable on the ball.

Notice how he is pointing to Saka to press Jones, leaving his marker Gomez free to receive.

Rice didn’t want to risk as Gravenberch and Jota were in the space behind him.

Identically, Alisson’s pass to Jones got Jorginho in a 2v1 as Rice didn’t press him, and they escaped the high press.

Despite overcoming Arsenal’s high pressing gradually throughout the game, forcing them to return for a mid-press.

Liverpool also had their moments but couldn’t create that many goal-scoring chances with the absence of the right-side trio of Bradley, Szoboszlai, and Jota we mentioned before.

As well as Gakpo, who prefers to come short, and Gravenberch’s inability to play Szoboslazi’s role.

The Flexibility

Jones was the key player for Liverpool against Arsenal.

Besides his ability to join the double pivot, he has an astonishing awareness of rotating in three different positions, as we mentioned.

Unluckily, They lost Jones due to injury.

So now Jürgen Klopp has to find a way to play without almost 70% of his starting eleven.

With no Alisson, Trent, Szoboszlai, Jones, Jota, Salah and Núñez.

The German coach did well against Luton Town.

Liverpool had their normal 4-3-3 line up, with Mac Allister dropping with Endō to form the double pivot.

Harvey Elliot started as a right winger, rotating with Bradley between hugging the touchline and being narrowly positioned.

The critical change from the home side was through Gravenberch (in yellow), who moved to more of a left-advanced midfielder position, even as a left winger, as we discussed how he suffered on the right side against Arsenal.

Moreover, Gakpo’s consistent dropping allowed him for more of a false nine role, allowing Díaz to make his sharp central runs in behind the opposition’s defence.

Equivalence to the above situation.

Caoimhin Kelleher plays a long ball for Díaz, now positioned as the main central forward, with Gravenberch (in yellow) occupying a left attacking midfielder position.

Díaz sets the ball to Elliot; the shape turns into a 4-2-3-1 with Gakpo, Elliot and Gravenberch behind Díaz.

Elliot’s precise ball found Díaz again, who had two clear-cut chances into the first four minutes.

Van Dijk goes long to Gravenberch (shadowed), who is positioned on the left-hand side along with Díaz (in yellow) centrally, and Gakpo drops as a false nine.

Kelleher went direct again towards Díaz and noticed the same presence from the Dutch midfielder.

Liverpool won that game 4-1 in spite of conceding the first goal early in the twelfth minute thanks to the goals from Virgil, Gakpo, Díaz and Elliot.

They have found a good adaptation using their available players.

However, their next game with the same absences is against Chelsea in the League Cup final, which is a different and challenging one.

How did they win the League Cup?

Liverpool had the same starting eleven with Robertson instead of Gomez.

With Nicolas Jackson and Sterling pressing both van Dijk and Konaté, Gallagher marked Mac Allister.

As shown below, Endō dropped and received from Virgil.

Endō had time on the ball as Palmer was marking Robertson and then shifted to press the Japanese midfielder.

Gravenberch (in yellow) is in the same position as Luton’s game, dragging Caicedo with him.

That left Enzo in a 2v1 against Díaz (in black) and Elliot.

Also, Díaz is centrally positioned.

Anyhow, Endō didn’t utilise that situation and lost the ball.

Down below, Mac Allister drops and drags Enzo a little out of the midfield area, Gravenberch (in yellow) in the same wide position, with Gakpo dropping in the midfield.

Van Dijk’s long diagonal ball to Bradley down the line aided by Elliot’s half-space run to pin Chilwell.

Finally, Díaz is in the striker position.

Here, Mac Allister, Endō, Elliot and Gravenberch are forming the midfield box shape.

Caicedo is in a 2v1 against Elliot and Ryan, but Kelleher rushed to go long.

Díaz is the target centrally, while Bradley (in yellow) provides the width down the right-hand side.

The same with Gravenberch and Díaz.

Elliot and Bradley’s rotations have been very impressive; we can see Enzo and Gallagher are marking Endō and Mac Allister.

Virgil could find Bradley (shadowed) in between the lines.

Then we can see Elliot (in yellow) is the one widely positioned, Diaz centrally and Gravenberch on the left side.

After Gravenberch found himself a suitable role, he picked a severe injury after a challenge with Caicedo towards the middle of the first half.

After that, the young Dutch midfielder was replaced by Gomez, who played as a right back, moving Bradley to the right wing position to maintain the width and Elliot (in white) to join the midfield.

To compensate for the absence of Gravenberch, Gomez joined the midfield with Endō, releasing Mac Allister (in yellow) to the advanced midfielder position on the left side.

Gakpo kept dropping as a false nine, with Bradley and Díaz as the wingers.

Here, we can see the new box-midfield with the base of Gomez and Endō, joined by Elliot and Mac Allister.

Elliot received from Bradley, and Levi Colwill had to press him, leaving a space behind him as Enzo stepped to press Gomez and Caicedo, marking Alexis.

Elliot returned to Konaté, who tried to play the pass either to Mac Allister or Díaz, but his missed pass meant the Reds did not utilise a possible 3v1 situation.

Liverpool kept creating a threatening situation but with less efficiency, as they lacked the presence of most of their starting players.

As Gomez is not naturally a midfielder, Bobby Clark replaced Bradley and joined the box-midfield while Elliot returned to the right-wing position.

As shown below, the presence of Gakpo and Clark with the inside run of Díaz forced Caicedo and Enzo to go backwards, giving Mac Allister time to pass towards Díaz, who is centrally behind the opposition’s midfield.

We can notice the huge gap on the other side for Elliot and Gomez, but again, Liverpool didn’t make full use of it.

Even during the final third stage, they had a fluid football playing.

Here, Gomez (shadowed) pushed forward to pin Chilwell so Elliot could receive freely from Endō.

Jackson moved to press Elliot, who returned the ball to his Japanese teammate and created a 3v2 overload centrally, with Díaz dropping and Mac Allister against Enzo and Caicedo.

Mac Allister’s half-space run opened the angle for Gakpo to receive the diagonal ball from Harvey.

Conclusion

Jürgen Klopp’s team showed a great performance even with the absence of most of their senior players, which was crowned at the end by winning the first trophy of the season with seven players from the academy.

That was a great flexibility to use every available player most appropriately.

So unlucky to lose all of these players at once; playing four games in eleven days and still winning all four with a convenient performance is also an awe-inspiring job.

As they survived that challenging period and with the possible return of the injured players, Can they win the title at the end as we are witnessing one of the most fascinating league races with Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal?