Liverpool finished their Premier League season in fifth place. Consequently, they will not play in the UEFA Champions League next year and 2022/23 goes down as a season to forget.
Liverpools season was terrible on many levels, defence included. It is enough to know that they conceded 37 goals from open play in the Premier League. Thus, they are tenth in terms of conceding goals from open play which is a poor position, while teams like Crystal Palace, Fulham and even Chelsea, in their notoriously bad season, conceded fewer goals from open play.
Despite all of the above, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, which is their defence from set pieces. This season, Liverpool had the best defence from set pieces in the Premier League. They only conceded six goals from set pieces, which is a very impressive number, especially considering their bad season in the Premier League, predominantly in the defensive department, where they conceded a whopping 47 goals in Englands top flight.
This tactical analysis will focus specifically on the outstanding tactics of Liverpool in defending free kicks, which made them strong defensively and difficult to score against in such situations. This is not surprising, as Jurgen Klopps side is one of the pioneers of set-piece analysis. We will also discuss the ideas that opponents could apply against this scheme aiming to overcome it.
The main scheme
The defensive structure in free kicks changes according to several factors, such as the distance from the goal, whether you are positioned vertically closer or farther from the goal — or horizontally. Therefore, if the free kick is in the outer flank, it differs from if it is in the half-space or the centre. But we will talk about the general structure of Liverpool in defensive free kicks.
Liverpool go for zonal marking and a high line with a late drop depending on the offside trap to keep the opponents far from the goal, which could be ri. Still, they have the perspective that even if the opponent gets the ball, turning it into a goal is difficult because the distance is far from the goal, except with complex tactics, as we will discuss later.
As shown in the first photo, Liverpool defend with two players away from the pack (highlighted in black below), one in the wall and one covering the short option. They usually use Trent Alexander-Arnold, highlighted in red, to be in the rebound area, trying to block the opponents runner from this area. The remaining seven stand in a high line, but some have special instructions. The first one, in green, tries to prevent the direct diagonal cross and also follows any runner in the area with a green arrow. Roberto Firmino, in blue, is the second-ball defender who acts as a second-line defender, as shown in the third photo. Fabinho, in yellow, has special instructions to block a runner from those who try to run to the far post, as shown in the second photo, leaving running back to the far post to the last man and the man in front of him, Virgil van Dijk.
It should be mentioned that they depend on their fantastic goalkeeper, Alisson Becker, to cover the space behind the line, especially in the far free kicks, as shown in the fourth photo.
It is common to manipulate the high line with two takers to make sure the line moves early before the real taker plays the cross which covers the offside, giving the attackers more space to run. It also aims to disorganise the line because they wouldnt drop together. However, as shown below, it doesnt affect Liverpools defenders, who are clever against this trick.
Offside attackers
We will discuss the different ways the opponents try to overcome this type of defending, and lets start with Gianni Vios Tottenham Hotspur.
The main idea here is that Spurs three offside at
