Manchester City must be wary of Liverpool’s tactical changes

DBasia.news – Liverpool will play week seven of the Premier League against defending champions, Manchester City at Anfield on Sunday (03/10) at 22.30 WIB. The Reds are currently in good momentum.

Liverpool are the only team in the Premier League at the moment who have never lost and are in first place. Jordan Henderson and his team mates collected 14 points with a record of 15 goals and conceded four goals.

City trailled behind them by one point, scoring 12 goals and conceding one. That shows their strong defense will be tested by Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Diogo Jota.

Mo Salah has scored eight goals and provided two assists in eight appearances across all competitions so far. From six Premier League matches, Mo Salah released 15 kicks on target.

No doubt the sharp ‘sword’ owned by Liverpool will later test City’s strong defense ‘shield’. In addition, Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola are also not foreign rivals as the two have met since in the German Bundesliga.

Klopp has a record of nine wins, three draws, nine defeats from 21 matches against Guardiola with a win percentage of 42.86%. As a result, the game would be something to look forward to.

Liverpool’s tactics

The 4-3-3 has been Jurgen Klopp’s tactic since he came to Liverpool in 2015. It was the main scheme that realized Klopp’s gegenpressing and also the speed of playing in the offensive phase by relying on a trident up front and wing attacks.

Pep Guardiola adapted to it and adopted the 4-2-3-1 tactic to ward off Liverpool’s quick and counterattack. According to reports in the Liverpool Echo, Klopp is also developing other alternative tactics to deal with Man City.

The 4-4-2 formation is an alternative to the tactics used by Klopp to serve Guardiola’s 4-2-3-1 formation. In the formation used by Klopp, Mo Salah and Roberto Firmino were the two players on the front lines who held City’s two pivots to develop the game.

Diogo Jota and Sadio Mane guarded the flanks of the game. The tactic worked well to trouble City, but Klopp was flexible to change it back to a 4-3-3 as the game went on.

Given the two tactical alternatives, it will be interesting to see if Klopp will use the same 4-3-3 as usual or a 4-4-2 to prevent City from building attacks.