The Mixer: The Story of Premier League Tactics, from Route One to False Nines

by Michael Cox

  The most significant tactical development as winter approached, however, involved Gerrard, who had become desperately unhappy with his performances in an attack-minded midfield role. Unusually, he approached Rodgers and asked him to watch videos of his recent performances to assess his all-round game, and wanted Liverpool’s analytics department to provide statistical analysis of his recent performances. This was a quite unprecedented step for such an established player, let alone someone who hadn’t obviously been playing poorly. Rodgers stayed up late that evening watching the tapes, and they reconvened the following afternoon.

  The statistics involving Gerrard’s physical output were satisfactory, but Rodgers identified a problem with the way his captain was receiving possession. ‘It was plain to see that my head movement wasn’t there,’ Gerrard remembered. ‘That movement is so important because it feels as if you’ve got to have eyes in the back of your head to play as a midfielder in the Premier League. It’s so much more significant now than when I started, because it’s so congested in the midfield and you have so much less time on the ball.’ They discussed Gerrard playing a considerably deeper midfield role where he’d find more space, taking inspiration from the wonderful Italian deep playmaker Andrea Pirlo, who had dominated proceedings against England at Euro 2012.

  Then Gerrard collected a hamstring injury and was unavailable for a month anyway. His replacement as captain, surprisingly, was Suárez – just four months after he’d been banned from training with his teammates. Without Gerrard, Liverpool recorded a comprehensive 5–0 victory at Tottenham, which Rodgers described as ‘a watershed moment’ in his side’s development, but also lost 2–1 at Chelsea and Manchester City between Christmas and New Year, with the club somewhat unfortunate that their two trickiest fixtures of the campaign, away at both of their eventual title rivals, came back to back in the middle of the busiest part of the season.

  Liverpool’s first match after the festive period was a trip to Stoke, and saw a significant tactical innovation – Gerrard deployed in the Pirlo role, a hugely surprising move. Gerrard’s major weakness was his positional indiscipline, and he’d therefore never previously played that position as the sole holding midfielder for Liverpool. Lucas Leiva, accustomed to defensive midfield, now played a box-to-box role alongside Henderson, with their energy creating a pocket of space for Gerrard, who launched long diagonal passes downfield. The match finished 5–3 and would foreshadow the rest of their campaign; with Gerrard used in that deeper role, Liverpool were sensational going forward but their defensive structure was rather risky.

  Liverpool’s outstanding performance came in February, a sensational 5–1 home win over Arsenal – particularly remarkable considering the Gunners were top of the Premier League. Rodgers’ side were absolutely rampant, with Martin Škrtel scoring the first two from set-pieces, then Liverpool producing a masterful counter-attacking performance against a side eternally vulnerable to that approach. Goals from first Raheem Sterling, a speedy young winger perfect for this approach, and then Sturridge put Liverpool 4–0 up after just 20 minutes, Sterling completed the scoring in the second half, while Suárez produced an astonishing all-round display and hit the woodwork from 35 yards, but somehow finished goalless. Arsenal pulled one back when Gerrard tripped Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Mikel Arteta converting the resulting penalty. That incident, with Gerrard’s defensive skills found wanting, was the sole negative in an otherwise fantastic all-round display, which was consistent with Liverpool’s previous home match, a similarly impressive 4–0 thrashing of Everton. Then, Gerrard was left isolated ahead of the defence and too easily attracted to Everton’s wide players drifting inside, and Ross Barkley, Everton’s number 10, found space. Nevertheless, Liverpool were scoring plenty of goals, with Gerrard starting the attacks from deep. Despite these two thumping wins, Liverpool were very much outsiders for the side – still in fourth place.

  Crucially, Liverpool now played an entirely different brand of football from Rodgers’ initial intentions. Those long spells of possession hadn’t materialised, and now Liverpool were most impressive when playing extremely direct counter-attacking football, which depended upon the speed of Suárez, Sturridge and Sterling – the SASAS? – to break past the opposition quickly. That was most obvious against Arsenal, and was combined with an aggressive midfield press that twice caught out Mesut Özil, stunned by the speed of the midfield battle, directly leading to breakaway goals. This approach was perfect for box-to-box midfielder Henderson, who provided both energetic pressing and storming forward runs.

  Liverpool’s average possession share was the fifth-highest in the league, and they commanded matches against weak opposition. But in their eight matches against the other top five sides – Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Everton – they dominated possession only once. More crucially, Liverpool lost four of those eight games.

  In the Arsenal match, and most others during this period, Rodgers played a 4–3–3 system – which meant either Sturridge or Suárez was fielded wide. This was a tricky balancing act for Rodgers. On one hand he determined the positioning of Suárez and Sturridge tactically, usually by deploying Sturridge’s pace against the opposition’s slowest defender. On the other hand, however, it was simply about managing Suárez and Sturridge’s mood. ‘I can play two or three games on the wing for you, but by the fourth game I’ll be annoyed,’ admitted Suárez. ‘Brendan looked for a formula to play me and Daniel in a way that meant we were both comfortable – at times decisions are made to keep good players happy as much as they are to create a particular tactical structure.’ In that sense, there was a similarity to Carlo Ancelotti’s Chelsea, an emphasis upon placating senior players as much as building a cohesive starting XI. Neither Suárez nor Sturridge were expected to track the opposition full-back when used wide, and were instructed to remain in the channel and offer a direct passing option so Liverpool could pounce immediately at transitions.

  Meanwhile, with Barcelona being toppled by a counter-attacking Atlético Madrid in both La Liga and the Champions League, and Pep Guardiola’s possession-based Bayern Munich side being utterly destroyed 5–0 on aggregate by a highly direct Real Madrid, tiki-taka’s popularity had waned. Nothing symbolised this sudden shift as much as Rodgers ditching possession football for this more straightforward style. Possession statistics were now considered less important, and in 2013/14 Liverpool led the way in two completely different areas: they made the most tackles and scored the most counter-attacking goals. It was the complete opposite of what Rodgers had intended to create. This was post-possession football.

  Rodgers also became significantly more reactive – and astute – with his tactics. Liverpool had the significant advantage of no European football and just five cup matches that season, so Rodgers used this freedom to tailor training sessions throughout the week with Liverpool’s upcoming opponents in mind. Players don’t like thinking specifically about the opposition too early, but from the Tuesday Rodgers would devise drills that conditioned the players for their weekend task. He wouldn’t immediately explain the precise reasons for the exercises, but would, for example, spend a couple of days working on through-balls and getting midfield runners beyond the forwards. Only on Thursday and Friday would he offer specific instructions – the opposition midfielders don’t track runs properly and their defence plays too high up the pitch, so that’s what Liverpool should exploit.

  It was an intelligent approach and wouldn’t have been possible had Liverpool been juggling regular midweek football. Liverpool also used their extra time on the training ground to work hard on set-pieces, and it’s notable that they regularly opened the scoring through this route, which then forced the opposition to attack, leaving space into which Liverpool could counter-attack. Gerrard’s fine deliveries helped Liverpool score a staggering 26 goals from dead-ball situations, the most in the league and more than double the average.

  That landmark 5–1 thrashing of Arsenal was the start of an astonishing 11-game winning run t
hat took Liverpool from fourth position into first. The combination of Rodgers’ astute tactics, Gerrard creating from deep, an aggressive midfield press, attacking dynamism and the league’s best two goalscorers created a seemingly unstoppable force. Liverpool were actually more Newcastle 1995/96 than Keegan’s team were themselves – whereas Newcastle’s goals-for and goals-against tallies were both surprisingly low, this 11-game Liverpool run included wins of 4–3, 6–3 and two 3–2s. In nine of those 11 games they scored three or more goals. They were absolutely battering opponents with relentless waves of attack.

  The penultimate game of this sequence was a 3–2 victory over Manchester City in early April, seemingly a title decider. This is also arguably the greatest game in Premier League history, another honour they’d be wrestling away from Newcastle 1995/96, with their famous 4–3 defeat to Liverpool widely considered the Premier League’s best. But this 3–2 was equally enthralling, was played at an incredible intensity and featured action from beginning to end. Notably, it was bookended by tremendous drama too.

  Beforehand, Anfield observed the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. This is always a solemn occasion, but 2014 proved particularly emotional. It was the 25th anniversary and came less than a fortnight after the start of an inquest into the disaster – after decades of campaigning by families of the victims – which eventually found that the 96 had been unlawfully killed. Matches that weekend started at 3:06 – the time the semi-final in 1989 had been stopped. And, while football itself inevitably takes a back seat in this context, it was impossible to ignore Liverpool’s title charge. At the Hillsborough Memorial Service, Liverpool fans ended ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ and were soon singing their primary chant for that season: ‘And now you’re gonna believe us / We’re gonna win the league!’ Liverpool supporters clearly believed, regularly turning the arrival of the team bus at Anfield into a colourful, raucous parade.

  The game itself was extraordinary, with Rodgers deploying a diamond midfield with Sterling at its tip. He’d been told to exploit the space by Suárez and Sturridge’s runs into the channels, and it worked perfectly as he raced through for the opener within six minutes. Škrtel scored another header from a set-piece to make it 2–0, while City’s Yaya Touré went off injured. The SAS were surprisingly quiet, however, with City’s full-backs refusing to push forward for fear of leaving space in the channels. Both Liverpool strikers played to the right, attempting to exploit left-sided centre-back Martin Demichelis’s lack of speed, largely without success. In fact, right-sided Kompany, well short of match fitness, was the weak link, finding himself unable to track Sterling’s run for the first goal and losing Škrtel for the second.

  At half-time, however, Manuel Pellegrini introduced James Milner, who offered thrust down the right, while David Silva provided a sensational spell of dominance, running the game single-handedly. He was up against Gerrard, who simply couldn’t get close to him and received little assistance from his midfield colleagues. This was not entirely surprising – Gerrard was unfamiliar with the deep role, Henderson was a box-to-box player, Coutinho a number 10 and Sterling a natural winger. It was hardly unexpected that such an attack-minded midfield quartet failed to cope with the magical Silva’s drifts, bursts and clever passes between the lines. Gerrard’s defensive shortcomings had been a nagging concern for weeks – now they were a major issue.

  Having put City in charge, SIlva was responsible for both their goals, poking home from Milner’s cut-back, before playing a cut-back himself that deflected off Glen Johnson and bounced into the net. 2–2, and City were looking for another. Silva nearly snatched the winner, but his five-foot-seven frame wasn’t enough to properly connect with Sergio Agüero’s low cross. Then, entirely against the run of play, City captain Kompany completed a miserable afternoon by slicing a simple clearance straight to Coutinho, who curled home gloriously. 3–2. It was a sensational game, a sensational victory, and Liverpool were on course for the title.

  At full-time, Gerrard immediately broke down in tears, before being surrounded by Liverpool teammates in an impromptu huddle. Gerrard then, overcome by emotion, found the composure to deliver a rallying cry: ‘Hey! This does not fucking slip now! Listen! This does not fucking slip. Listen, listen, this is gone, we go at Norwich exactly the same!’ he roared, hammering his fist into his other hand. ‘We go again!’

  The trip to Norwich wasn’t dissimilar, with Liverpool racing out of the traps and leading 2–0 within ten minutes through Sterling and Suárez, before being pegged back to 3–2 and enduring a nervy last 15 minutes. With Sturridge injured and Henderson suspended following a late dismissal in the victory over City, Rodgers used an unusual formation. He wanted to stick with his diamond, but was aware Norwich coach Neil Adams planned to play the same system. Recalling a strategy a South American coach had used against his Chelsea youth team nearly a decade earlier, Rodgers therefore placed Coutinho in between the diamond of Gerrard, Lucas, Allen and Sterling, creating a five-against-four situation and dominating midfield with this highly unusual 4–1–3–1–1 shape.

  Then, however, came Liverpool’s fateful home match against Chelsea. With three games remaining, Liverpool were five points clear of Mourinho’s Chelsea, who had effectively abandoned their title charge and were concentrating upon their Champions League semi-final against Atlético Madrid three days later. Liverpool were also six points clear of Manchester City, who had a game in hand, and, crucially, a superior goal difference. A draw would have suited Liverpool as it would keep Chelsea five points behind and ensure the title remained in their own hands, with just two wins against Crystal Palace and Newcastle required to win their first Premier League crown.

  Mourinho, amazingly, rested most of his first-choice XI: John Terry, Gary Cahill, David Luiz, Ramires, Willian, Eden Hazard and Fernando Torres were all omitted because they were starting against Atlético in midweek. Only Mark Schwarzer, César Azpilicueta, Branislav Ivanović and Ashley Cole started both games. It was effectively a second-string XI sent to spoil Liverpool’s party, including Czech centre-back Tomáš Kalas, who hadn’t played a single minute in the league all season. ‘I am a player for training sessions,’ he’d joked to Czech TV a fortnight beforehand. ‘If they need a cone, they put me there instead.’ Suddenly, he was thrust into one of the Premier League’s most decisive matches.

  Chelsea’s performance was unashamedly negative. Rodgers later complained they’d ‘parked two buses’ in front of the goal – Mourinho yet again being the victim of the phrase he’d introduced to English football – which made it impossible for Liverpool to find their attackers running in behind. But again, this shouldn’t have been problematic. A draw would have suited Liverpool, but they simply weren’t a side who could play for a point – they were always gung-ho, all guns blazing, starting matches at 100mph. This concerned Gerrard. ‘I was worried about how we were planning to play against Chelsea,’ he admitted in his autobiography. ‘I’ve never been able to say this in public before, but I was seriously concerned that we thought we could blow Chelsea away. I sensed an overconfidence in Brendan’s team talk. He thought we could go out and attack Chelsea, just as we had done against Manchester City and Norwich. We played into Mourinho’s hands. I feared it then, and I know it now.’

  Henderson was still suspended and Sturridge only fit enough for the bench, so Rodgers used a 4–3–3/4–3–2–1, with Sterling and Coutinho drifting inside from the flanks into the crowded centre. Liverpool offered little width, because full-backs Johnson and youngster Jon Flanagan played considerably more conservatively than usual, perhaps a sign that Rodgers knew Liverpool should play more defensively. As a result they never stretched Chelsea.

  At the end of an entirely uneventful first half, the key moment took place on the stroke of half-time, involving Gerrard – who came close to missing this game, sidelined throughout the week with agonising back pain and only playing following a series of painkilling tablets and injections, the strongest permissible. Liverpool’s c
entre-backs had spread wide, so Gerrard dropped deep to temporarily become the main defender. As he received a simple sideways pass from left-sided centre-back Mamadou Sakho, he slipped.

  That’s not the full story, however. What actually happened was more complex – Gerrard’s slip was the second error. The first came a split-second earlier, when he momentarily took his eye off the ball and let it run beneath his foot. Before the ball arrived, Gerrard had already glanced up twice, checking his passing options and the positioning of Chelsea striker Demba Ba. The liberty of taking a third look, however, killed him. ‘My concentration was more on Ba than the ball,’ he admitted. This caused the miscontrol, and in Gerrard’s desperation to recover the situation, he panicked, lost his footing, and Ba dribbled forward to score.

  It’s become an iconic moment laced with cruel irony for two reasons. First, there’s the prosaic: Gerrard had ended the apparent title decider against City roaring ‘This does not slip!,’ then his slip proved disastrous. It would feel ludicrously contrived in a film script, but it proved one of the Premier League’s most significant moments. The second irony was more significant – Gerrard was only playing this deeper role because he’d discovered his head movement hadn’t been good enough further forward. Now, his head movement resulted in the Premier League’s costliest miscontrol.

  Rodgers mentioned the mistake in his half-time team-talk, reminding his players that Gerrard had rescued Liverpool countless times before and now they needed to repay him. But Liverpool had grown accustomed to breaking into space and looked perplexed about how to penetrate a deep defence. Their second-half performance is primarily remembered for Gerrard’s desperate attempts to atone for his own mistake, about which he was typically self-critical – ‘I was running forward too much, trying shots from impossible angles.’ Indeed, he attempted eight shots after the break, generally from long range. But Liverpool had few other promising routes of attack. Sturridge and Suárez couldn’t receive possession in dangerous positions, with the latter underlining Liverpool’s tactical naivety by asking a Chelsea defender why they were playing so defensively. Sterling had no room to dribble, Liverpool’s passing combinations simply weren’t working, and crosses played into Chelsea’s hands. Against a team playing so extraordinarily deep, shooting from range was a perfectly legitimate tactic, although Gerrard’s attempts gradually changed from ‘leading by example’ to personifying that old criticism – ‘trying to do everything himself’.