Before we show you Harshals solution, lets remind ourselves of the challenge he was posed.
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January 2021 sees my team face the challenge of facing Liverpool, who have by now established themselves as the best side in the world, heading for another Premier League title and in the latter stages of the Champions League as well. With the tie set to occur towards the end of the month, my club has been able to splurge and bring in some of the best young talent in the world, along with the experienced hands already at the club, to give us the best chance of getting past the Reds. After hours of analysis, this is the side and tactics I have come up with to beat Liverpool and secure a famous win for our nascent club.
Lineups
Liverpool (4-3-3): Alisson; Trent Alexander-Arnold, Joe Gomez, Virgil van Dijk, Andrew Robertson; Fabinho, Georginio Wijnaldum, Jordan Henderson; Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino
Liverpool are expected to line up in their standard 4-3-3, with the same core of players who have helped them dominate English and European football over the last couple of years.
Harshals XI (3-4-1-2): Gianluigi Donnarumma; Matthijs de Ligt, Raphael Varane, Alessandro Bastoni; Reece James, Kevin De Bruyne, Federico Valverde, Achraf Hakimi; Hannes Wolf; Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho
I would send out my side in a 3-4-1-2 shape, with the notable inclusions being that of Hannes Wolf as the attacking midfielder, Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford as twin split strikers. Kevin De Bruyne in a free midfield role where he would be encouraged to get into space between the lines on either flank, as we will show later in this piece. The aim would be to employ a direct, quick counter-attacking system to exploit Liverpools high defensive line, and their tendency to push both full-backs forward when in possession.
Liverpool in possession
As stated earlier, my team will aim to play on the counter-attack, hence Liverpool are expected to dominate possession. This would need my players to be extremely disciplined and carry out their roles to perfection in order to deny Liverpools fantastic attackers any chances on goal. We will not attempt to press high, settling into a mid-to-low block, and only pressing specific players when certain scenarios arise.
