Former Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez returned to Anfield in a Boxing Day match that was dominated by the home side. Dominated, rather, is an understatement. Coming off a massive 3-1 win against archrivals Manchester United and a 2-0 win against Wolverhampton five days later, Liverpool were looking to continue this resilient run of form against a Newcastle side that had only won once in their last five matches and had scored the second-lowest number of goals in the league, only ahead of last-place Huddersfield.
Lineups
Knowing it was very likely Liverpool would control a majority of the possession, Jurgen Klopp organized the XI in a 4-2-3-1 with the two defensive midfielders, Georginio Wijnaldum and Jordan Henderson, rotating dropping into the spaces alongside or just in front of the center backs, Dejan Lovren and Virgil van Dijk, in possession. With his squad seeing more of the ball, these two midfielders would also help block any potential counter-attacks.
Newcastle’s 5-3-2 was meant to get the ball around Liverpool’s defense via long balls from the back line and deeper-playing midfielders. Despite attempting only 233 passes, over a quarter of them, 66 approximately, were long balls. These were often unsuccessful as Liverpool’s defenders, most notably Andrew Robertson and van Dijk, blocked or intercepted the passes with ease.
Heat maps for Liverpool and Newcastle. Liverpool maintained possession throughout, ending with a 75%-25% advantage in that statistic.
Liverpool attacked with ease
Newcastle’s match plan was to successfully execute counter-attacks with passing from an eight-man medium block. With little pressure against them and going against a three-man midfield, Liverpool found it easy to penetrate the forward half-spaces between those midfielders, with most of the scoring chances coming through those areas.
