If you take into account the fact that Fulham were poor, and if we allow for the possibility that our own play helped to make them look even poorer, then that performance was as good as any we will have all season. Statistically, it ticked all of the boxes - more possession, more shots, more goals, clean sheet, more passes, more accurate passes, more dribbles, more tackles, more corners, etc. I don't know how much more the team could have done yesterday in terms of build-up, defending, possession, managing the recovery in the game, and more. If Agger had scored in the open net, and Suarez and Gerrard finished their angled 1v1's with the GK, we are looking at a really good score to compare with Chelsea's today. Overall, though, the players did what was demanded of them, did it consistently, and did it to a high standard.
Shape -The shape of the team, overall, was really good, even with the substitutions. The positional discipline that the starting eleven held to was good to see, and it definitely helped not only the possession and pass accuracy, but it helps Gerrard to play the passes he was playing to make him look like vintage Gerrard - players were making natural runs, if a pass wasn't on, players could turn and make instant passes to positions they knew would be filled, and the runs were more natural - Gerrard seemed to be choosing his moments to break beyond the forward, and if it was a conscious thing, we may see a better second half of the season because it means he has accepted his new physical limitations in terms of his explosive power, and can make better use of them by timing the frequency of those runs, rather than making them the central part of his game.
Additionally, with the definite shape of the front four, it meant that although Fulham might have approached the game with the idea that we would pass and pass to rest on the ball without penetrating much, the surety of Gerrard's long passes, allied to Suarez's running, allied to the overall extreme circulation of the ball, meant that Fulham had more than one pattern to worry about. Then, with Downing not only having a good game, but being more direct than is usual for him, you can see that if Fulham were under-prepared and below par, they were going to be in for a long evening with these subtle changes of approach from Liverpool. The foundation of all that, though, was the consistent and strong shape of the team:
Pressing - The pressing yesterday, much like in the Norwich game, was a lot closer to what it needed to be a Barca-type team. Instead of pressing one at a time and stranding the first defender against the attacker and support attackers, players were going at the opposition player on the ball in two's. This is quite a Brazilian thing to do, rather than a Spanish one - it works under the maxim that "the first defender doesn't win the ball, the 2nd defender might, but the 3rd defender must". We could see this working by the number of times we forced the Fulham midfield to turn with the ball and play it back, leading to some pressure on their defense as Shelvey, Suarez and Suso did good jobs of tracking the passes and pressing them (although Shelvey lacks the acceleration to be truly effective at this, and Suso can sometimes get disengaged from the flow of play). As we can see from the average positions, though, the attacking midfield three kept it tight horizontally, so there was a tighness to our pressing game that is often missing in the straight 4-3-3 (something Rafa understood, hence the development of the 4-2-3-1 to a high degree). This horizontal pressure also allowed the fullbacks to get more engaged in the attack, so the flow of transition from one phase (defence) to another (attack) was consistent and smooth, allowing us to keep Fulham under positional pressure for most of the game.
Additionally, if we look at the positions of Skrtel and Agger, we can see two things that were different than usual; firstly, Skrtel is usually the more recessed of the two defenders, dropping in behind Agger's line. This has a few reasons - either the opposition attacking from the left, the opposite forwards having pace against Skrtel, and sometimes just general uncertainty about the system in the back. Yesterday, though, they were pretty square to each other, which might indicate growing trust in the system and each other's role within in. It could also be influenced by the return of Lucas and the knowledge that he will drop into the middle and do a central defenders job in a way that Joe Allen can't (no fault of his). Secondly, Agger and Skrtel were closer together than they usually are, and it would be interesting to know if this was a conscious move given the gaps we were hurt in last week, or if it was a subconscious thing, with the pair not wanting to risk being beaten through the middle again. Either way, it worked, it was conventional, and it didn't disrupt the possession game. If it was consciously done, with BR's approval/coaching, then I hope it stays, because it allows them both to defend more naturally, keeps them involved in the movement of the ball, and doesn't preclude them from going wide on certain triggers (GK with the ball, goal kicks, etc.). The analogy to us is a zipper - when the ball is behind, it opens up, but when the ball moves into the forward zones, the central defenders close up together, hurting the space behind. On the other hand, this opens the wings to counterattack, but that has the benefit of making play predictable (the ball has to come inside, and it's only arriving from one direction - not the boy band, though. They are terrible wingers). So hopefully this is a genuine change to the positional play of the defenders, because that central channel is consistently a weak area of the system in a league that more often than not goes directly down the middle.
Lines of attack - What is interesting to look at the Fulham defender's average positions is that they are pulling towards our left side, but statistically, we attacked a lot more down the right side. The probable reason for this is the threat we posed down that side, augmented by Gerrard's pinpoint passes to Enrique. The combination of Enrique, Suarez and Suso, with Shelvey moving in that zone too, clearly kept the Fulham central defence on their toes. This had the added benefit of isolating Downing and Johnson with Riise, allowing Downing to have a bit of space to express himself and show what a fully-motivated Downing can do. This explains the space he had for both his goal, his shot and his assist. The fact that the defensive midfield trio for Fulham pushed quite far forward (not so much in support of Berbatov, but probably to disturb the possession of Gerrard and Lucas - however, as mentioned earlier, Gerrard was releasing the ball longer and earlier and behind the Fulham fullbacks, so that made that gameplan ineffective quite quickly) meant that the entire attacking midfield three had a lot of space to move and play, forcing the Fulham defence to split their attention away from Suarez, which let him in at least twice with legitimate chances to score (one of which he did). If we add Sturridge and one more mobile forwards (including Borini when fit), I think we'll see more games like this one, in terms of the attack. If we can keep the defence solidified like we did yesterday, I think that even the most doubtful fan can see the progress that can be made in the second half of the season. We may not meet our actual table position targets, but I don't think we'd be far off with more performances like yesterday
