Premier League 2019/20: Liverpool vs Chelsea – tactical analysis

Crowned champions Liverpool were taking on Chelsea in their last home game of this Premier League season. The game turned out to be an eight-goal thriller with a lot of chances from both teams. Liverpool and Chelsea played to its strengths, however, Jürgen Klopps side were more clinical in front of goal and won the game at the end. Both teams managed to create a lot of problems for each other, with the different tactical approaches and formations.

In this tactical analysis, we will delve into tactics of both coaches for this game, and how teams tried to exploit the weaknesses of each other.

Lineups

Jürgen Klopp chose almost the same team that faced Arsenal, only with Naby Keïta replacing Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in midfield, joining Fabinho and Wijnaldum.

Frank Lampard, on the other hand, also opted for the same lineup he used in the FA Cup game against Manchester United, with the only change being for Kepa Arrizabalaga instead of Caballero in goal.

Despite that both teams kept almost the same lineups from their last games, Liverpool had an upper hand in fitness levels. The Reds had a week of preparation for this game after a defeat to Arsenal, while Chelsea played in cup competition three days prior to this game.

Liverpools press

In this game, we witnessed a very interesting battle of formations, with a lot of tactical nuances at play. When Chelsea defenders were playing out of the back, Liverpools attacking trident managed to limit easier passing options for the most part. They did it by smart positioning and timely runs. In the image below you can see one of the examples, where Zouma has the ball and both Salah and Mané are making inverted runs to press the Frenchman. Both wingers tried to position themselves in a way that would allow them to become cover shadows of wide centre-backs. So, most of their runs were diagonal. Firmino wasnt pressing the third centre-back most of the time, marking one of the Chelsea central midfielders instead. When the Brazilian was tracking either Jorginho or Kovacic in midfield, another Liverpool midfielder would push up and mark the remaining midfielder. This structure forced the centre-backs to play wide towards either James or Alonso. When the ball was at the feet of one of the wider centre-backs, pressing them was easier with one of the wingers creating a cover shadow for the centre-back in the middle.

Overall, the attacking trio of Liverpool managed to cope with the initial build-up phase, smartly switching depending on where the ball was. However, Chelsea formation and personnel caused some alterations for Jürgen Klopps usual tactics down the road. As Ive mentioned in the previous paragraph, while Firmino was marking a Chelsea midfielder, either Wijnaldum, Keïta or Fabinho would mark the remaining midfielder. Below you can see one of the examples, where Keïta marks Jorginho. Due to Mané having more defensive workload than Salah, with the latter often staying with Rüdiger, Keïta would press Azpilicueta when the Senegalese wasnt able to.