- Anfield Index

It's December, and that means I can get my Nuno Espirito Santa joke out once more. But the greatest present at Anfield on Sunday night was the presence of fans in the stadium. The Premier League champions, shorn of home support since March, finally had the adulation they deserved. Despite only 2000 fans being allowed back into Anfield, this was more than enough of a crowd to spur Jürgen Klopp's men into producing a display worthy of a crowd, and …

The Times’ David Walsh called Liverpool’s 5-1 deconstruction of Arsenal “their best performance of the season”. Liverpool barely pushed themselves. This was a clinical, ruthless and efficient dismembering of Arsenal, and precisely why Pep Guardiola said Liverpool are "the best team in the world right now". To thoroughly outplay Arsenal, score five goals, and create opportunities for at least two more, are doing so without breaking a sweat, and while needlessly opening up space for Arsenal to exploit was intimidatingly …

Well it's international break so unfortunately there has been no club football to comment on from the weekend *groans*. Happily, what it does do is allow a bit of time to reflect on things from the last few weeks - in particular a couple of defensive issues. Under Brendan Rodgers' management, Liverpool have used a number of different shapes. Just eleven games into the league season, at least four basic formations have been used - 4-2-3-1, 3-4-1-2, 3-1-4-2 and 4-4-2. …

Arsenal for their part started in their usual 4-2-3-1 shape. Arteta and Ramsey started as the holding midfielders, although Ramsey didn't particularly play as a holding player, preferring to get forward and combine with Cazorla, Ozil, Rosicky and the lone striker Giroud. This was at risk of leaving Arteta isolated on transition defence. Liverpool continued with their 3-5-2, keeping the same midfield shape as they did last week against West Brom with Lucas as the pivot just in front of …