Midfield

Liverpool’s One-Dimensional Midfield Highlights The Need For Naby

Last Thursday, Naby Keita was starring for RB Leipzig as they defeated Zenit St Petersburg 2-1 in the Europa League. The Guinean laid-on a delightful assist for Timo Werner, gliding through the midfield before finding the forward in inch-perfect fashion, on a night that also saw him win all five of his tackles, complete five...

Red Hot Reds Have Transcended The Fab Four

It was rather telling that after a game in which all three of Liverpool’s front three scored – taking them to a total of 66 goals between them – none of the conversation was about how good Salah, Firmino and Mané were. So I’m going to start this article with that bit. Because they...

Liverpool’s Attacking Flexibility

Hello again Anfield Index, it’s been a while. Eagle-eyed viewers that you are, some of you have probably noticed that Liverpool are scoring quite a few goals this season. My goal in this article is to explain to you how adjustments in personnel and tactical decisions have allowed us to both destroy ambitious opposition...

Porto 0-5 Liverpool: A Tactical Breakdown

Liverpool are one of the few clubs still undefeated within the Champions League, but few expected the utterly dominant display, away to Porto, which effectively ended the tie. How then did Liverpool approach the game? For while the scoreline suggests a brutal decimation of Porto, it was not quite that simple. The match was predominantly played...

Observations as Liverpool Crash Out of FA Cup

Liverpool slumped to their second successive defeat on Saturday night, crashing out of the FA Cup fourth round for the third season in a row. Ending all chances of capturing a trophy this year, The Reds produced a very abject performance as West Brom secured their second win since August - one of which...

Why Emre Can Will Become a World-Class Number Six

Emre Can has been a player who has polarised the opinion of Liverpool fans, not just about how good he is but what his best position is also. Up until this season, many fans including myself believed he was most effective in the number 8 position, operating as a box to box midfielder. This...

Van Dijk & Keita | Posing A New Threat From Deep

I started writing a tactical piece a few months ago which was set to be titled ‘How to Stop Liverpool’. This was around the time that Liverpool suffered two bad results at Anfield in the space of a week by drawing with both West Brom and Everton despite dominating the ball in both matches....

The Magnificent Seven: How Liverpool Trounced Spartak

Since September, in our match analyses, we've concluded more often than not that Liverpool's performances have warranted better scorelines, that the underlying performances have actually been rather good, even despite the growing discontent with Jürgen Klopp's side through October as the team struggled, with a particular low-point against Spurs, and even into November as...

Liverpool 1 Chelsea 1 – Flukes and Rebukes

Sometimes there are fluke goals. Sometimes the opposition are just better than you. Sometimes you can be unlucky. The fury about the draw with Chelsea has matched that of the second half in Seville which seems a little unfair. Chelsea have the best centre-back in the country in Cesar Azpilicueta, a monster of a player in N’golo...

Liverpool’s Full Strength Attacking Options

At no point this season has it seemed like Liverpool have had all their best players available. A "back injury" for Coutinho, a suspension and a pulled hamstring for Mane and a lengthy injury to Lallana meant that players in the starting XI were moved around to accommodate for the missing names. The biggest...