These are the games in which champions are forged, and if not this season, then sometime in the next three seasons could see Liverpool crowned Premier League champions. And the basis of it all is being sown in this part of the season, where a run of 7 wins on the trot has pushed Liverpool into the last 7 games as true contenders for the title, in only the second year of Rodgers' reign. As much as Liverpool were the focal point of the game, Sunderland themselves played their part with a solid, structured and disciplined tactical plan.
ShapeLiverpool played the Diamond 4-4-2 that has been common in the last few games, and although it has its critics, the shape of the team was less problematic than the tasks performed within the shape, because after all, formations are neutral. Sunderland lined up in a pre-match predicted 5-3-2, which looked more like a 5-2-1-2 in terms of roles of the players. It was designed to keep things tight and close, and was clearly a ploy by Poyet to keep the game defensive until the second half, and then add the quicker and more energetic attackers onto the field at the right time. The plan was almost working - in conjunction with some very bad refereeing - until the free kick before half time. The second goal in the second half probably made sure of the points for Liverpool, despite the brief comeback from Sunderland. However, the way we played, more than the formation itself, added to the nerves and frustration for much of the match. Three key factors are obvious from how we played.
Lack of a left sideIf we look at the average positions, parsed out for the formations each team played, then we can see one of the main areas that caused us problems was our almost complete lack of a left-sided attack:
With Joe Allen working hard but lacking any real quality in his touches, and being predominantly right-footed, together with Flanagan's lack of forward movement and Suarez and Sturridge drifting more to the right and central zones in the attacking third, there was very little balance in the attack across the field. This made defending for Sunderland's back five easier, especially for their central defenders, who put on a very disciplined performance. One of the overriding principles of defending is to make play predictable by forcing the ball to one side, and locking it in on that side by cutting off the inside passing lanes. We made Sunderland's job easier by overplaying our attack on the right side, and we effectively left ourselves relying on individual moments of brilliance to create chances, which didn't really happen for us, save for the free kick and Sturridge's goal. Without that balance in attack, we lacked any kind of creativity and improvisation as a group, and the result was a very nervy performance that got bogged down with a lot of midfield possession.
Suarez and SturridgePart of the "making play predictable" mantra for defenders was helped by the fact that, collectively, Suarez and Sturridge had possibly their least cohesive game all season. Rather than performing well as individuals, but not connecting as a pair, they actually got in each other's way, and this, coupled with Henderson and Johnson's combinations on the right side (they had the most touches of the ball of anyone on the Liverpool team, individually), meant that we had four players operating in the same attacking zone, with the end product not amounting to very much. Add Coutinho to the mix as well, and we ended up with 7 defenders defending 6-7 attackers in a single area of the field for the most part, with little penetration. In fact, for probably the first game this season, we didn't have a single through-pass in the entire game that was completed. Given that this is a huge part of our attacking threat, this represented both a failure on our part to make our possession dominance count, and a triumph of sorts for a well-organised Sunderland defence.
The Gap Between the LinesThe problem with our possession dominance is that in order to maintain it, we had to create depth behind the ball - especially to compensate for our lack of attacking width. This gives the defenders a little extra time to possess the ball without immediate pressure. The trade-off is that there is space between midfield and defence in which a canny team can operate and exploit. Thankfully, Sunderland were intent on playing a defensive game up until the last 15-20 minutes. Had they played their more thrusting game like they did in the last quarter, they might have had a lot of joy. The switch to 4-3-3 from them and the overloading of Liverpool's left side, with the resulting switch to 4-5-1 for us, only served to emphasise the spaces between our back line and midfield, with Gerrard uncharacteristically (compared to recent performances) foregoing his defensive role to try and push the team forward on attack:
The substitution of Sterling (as opposed to what would have been the more obvious substitution of Lucas for Allen, say) was designed to give Liverpool more impetus going forward, to exploit the increasing risks that Sunderland were taking in the search of an equalising goal. Unfortunately, momentum was with them and the tactical adjustment Rodgers made didn't really gel, especially with Suarez having an off-day and Coutinho being on another level to the rest of his team-mates. Thankfully, apart from a dangerous free kick needlessly given away by a disappointing Johnson, Sunderland couldn't capitalise on Liverpool's below-par performance, and the title-tilt maintained it's run with Spurs at Anfield to come at the weekend.
OverallIt was a "professional" performance by Liverpool, but by no means was it an "ugly" win. The most possession, the most passes, better passing accuracy, most shots, most shots on target and two goals all point to a performance that was enough to win the game but nothing much more. It was the kind of performance that, for title-winnin teams, gets looked back on as a "defining game". It could very well turn out to be - more than United, more than Arsenal, more than Southampton - the defining game of the final run of games. The day Liverpool ground out a win by only scoring two goals.