Should we be worried about Liverpool this season?

Summary

Podcast Summary: “Should we be worried about Liverpool this season?”

The Athletic FC Podcast
Date: August 30, 2025
Host: Ayob Akimolere
Guests: J.J. Bull & John McKenzie

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Overview

This episode delves into Liverpool's start to the Premier League season under new head coach Arne Slot. After two wins in two games but continued defensive frailties, the panel examines the tactical transition from the Klopp era, the integration and performance of new arrivals (notably Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike), and how evolving roles—particularly Mo Salah's—might affect Liverpool’s attack and title defense.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Chaos vs. Control in Slot’s Liverpool (01:34–05:42)

• Slot’s Tactical Shift:
  Slot seeks added control compared to Klopp’s “organized chaos,” but evidence so far suggests some chaos remains in Liverpool’s play—especially in defensive transitions.
  • J.J. Bull: “Maybe the only slight difference...is that after we win the ball I like to go forward just as Jurgen liked it. But I sometimes like it when players try to keep the ball, not play the difficult ball, which is where the chaos comes.” (02:13)
• Role of the Players:
  New personnel (e.g., Jeremy Frimpong in for Trent Alexander-Arnold) introduce different dynamic; Frimpong is more outward, direct, and individualistic, impacting patterns that previously revolved around Trent and Salah combinations.
  • J.J. Bull: “The individuals in this situation—are they doing what Slot wants them to do and slow it down and control it...or is it because the players don’t have the skill set to do it?” (05:42)

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2. Florian Wirtz: Usage and Adaptation (05:42–21:10)

• Wirtz’s Best Role
  • John McKenzie explains that Wirtz thrives as a “high volume final third player,” needing many touches in advanced areas to create space and orchestrate attacks.
  • “For me the answer [of where to play Wirtz] is in the final third. Because Florian Wirtz...likes to get a load of touches in the final third.” (07:22)
• Current Usage at Liverpool
  • Wirtz is dropping deeper and receiving fewer attacking-third touches compared to Leverkusen; he’s less integral in final actions, which partly explains his less noticeable impact so far.
  • “This attacking third number is basically half the amount of touches in the final third that he was getting for Leverkusen.” (13:48)
• Examples of Mismatched Playstyles:
  Various “Wirtz in space” sequences show him offering, but Liverpool often opts for rapid, wide attacks rather than involving him in construction and overloads.
  • John McKenzie: “What he’s really good at…is not the area where Liverpool are finding him in.” (11:08)
• Fan Expectation:
  • “Does it annoy you sometimes when we have fans and they’re like he was useless?…he’s not being used effectively in the way he was, perhaps, at Leverkusen?” – Ayob Akimolere (14:09)
  • John McKenzie: “Exactly.” (14:20)
• Key Takeaway:
  To unlock Wirtz, Liverpool must fine-tune their possession to find him in high-value zones and not bypass him in pursuit of direct chances.

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3. Hugo Ekitike’s Fast Start: The Perfect Contextual Fit (23:41–29:00)

• Contrast with Wirtz
  While Wirtz’s game and Liverpool’s patterns aren’t fully aligned yet, Ekitike has slotted in seamlessly because Liverpool are generating the “fast break” & transition scenarios he thrived in at Frankfurt.
  • “What we’ve got in Ekitike I think is the opposite…taking a player from one context in which they’re thriving and putting them in another context which is similar.” – John McKenzie (23:45)
• Data:
  Last season, Liverpool led Europe’s top four leagues in fast break goals; Frankfurt (Ekitike’s former team) was second.
• Goal Breakdown:
  Ekitike’s and Salah’s last five open-play goals all come from open, transitional, “chaotic” situations with space to exploit.
  • “If you take a player from a team that they’re thriving in and you put them in your team doing similar things...then you shouldn’t be that surprised to see that player hitting the ground running.” (28:15)
• Mo Salah’s Role Evolving:
  Signs point to Liverpool beginning to diversify attacking threat, reducing reliance on Salah as he ages, though this is early and data is limited.

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4. Mo Salah’s New Normal and Supporting Cast (29:00–35:40)

• Statistical Caveats:
  Salah has slightly fewer touches, dribbles, and shots, but sample size is small and opponents have played aggressive, man-marking systems.
• Structural Shifts:
  Traditional wide triangles (Salah + right back + midfielder) are less frequent, shifting to more central combinations thanks to new personnel (Frimpong, Wirtz, Ekitike).
  • “They’ve traditionally built with wide triangles…they’re now playing kind of through the middle with a striker who’s running in behind.” – J.J. Bull (29:14)
• Attacking Variety
  Introduction of Ekitike gives Liverpool a true nine, new centrality, and makes their approach less predictable, easing pressure on Salah and providing more options.
  • “It’s important to diversify your threat…If all your threat is coming through one player, they can double up on that player and it creates space elsewhere.” – John McKenzie (34:33)
• Rest Defense Concerns:
  The panel notes defensive transitions remain vulnerable, especially with more advanced fullbacks, fewer holding midfielders, and added attacking risk.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Have faith in Wirtz. Find Wirtz in space. Get the T-shirt.” – Ayob Akimolere (21:10)
• “Wirzing. He’s in space.” – *Ayob Akimolere coining the term “Wirzing” for Wirtz’s spatial finding habit (18:24–18:26)
• “If you take a player from a team they’re thriving in and you put them in your team doing similar things...you shouldn’t be that surprised to see that player hitting the ground running.” – John McKenzie (28:15)
• “They’re moving on from what they were. They are doing that and that will take a little time to get the chemistry right...if consistent things do happen that cause those issues...then you start wondering whether they are able to defend their title” – J.J. Bull (35:05)
• “Is it a Szoboszlai assist or a Salah assist?” (on Rio Igomo’s goal) – Ayob Akimolere (35:28)
• “Yes, we’ll leave it there.” – John McKenzie (35:37)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:34–05:42] – Klopp’s chaos vs. Slot’s control; the effect of player changes
• [05:42–21:10] – Florian Wirtz’s fit at Liverpool, tactical breakdown, usage data, fan expectations
• [23:41–29:00] – Hugo Ekitike’s adaptation, Liverpool’s attacking structure, Mo Salah’s shifting role
• [29:00–35:40] – Salah’s influence, formation changes, new threats, chemistry-building
• [35:28–35:37] – Light-hearted debate on Rio Igomo’s goal assist

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Conclusions

• Slot’s Liverpool is in flux. They are balancing between the high-speed directness of Klopp and a desire for more control, but key positions (like Alexander-Arnold’s previous role) and new signings have shifted team dynamics.
• Integration of new signings varies: Ekitike fits Liverpool’s current attacking blueprint almost perfectly, while fully harnessing Wirtz’s talent will require tactical evolution.
• Early days, but adaptability will be crucial: The attacking mix is growing more versatile but fixing defensive transitions and ensuring stars like Wirtz are optimized will be key if Liverpool are to defend the title.

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This summary captures the core tactical and player dynamics discussed on the episode, highlighting Liverpool’s evolution and the nuanced challenges of utilizing new signings in a shifting football identity.

Transcript

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[Ayob Akimolere]

The Athletic FC welcome to the Athletics week in football with me Ayob Akimolere as two wins out of two for Liverpool so far in the Premier League, but they can't stop conceding. Why is that? And should Arnazot be concerned as they look to defend their title? Let's get into this gentlemen. Got J.J. bull and John McKenzie.

[John McKenzie]

I.

[Ayob Akimolere]

Mean J.J. slot's first season and there was always that conversation about Jurgen Klopp playing with chaos and then Slot is the guy that maybe added a bit more control to that chaos. But from what you're looking at so far from Lunval's first two games, is it fair to say that some chaos is seeping into Arne slots were it.

[J.J. Bull]

Seems like it might be, but we know that he wants to have control, he said early in his career at Liverpool. Maybe the only slight difference there is is that after we win the ball I like to go forward just as Jurgen liked it. But I sometimes like it when players try to keep the ball, not play the difficult ball, which is where the kind of chaos comes. Whereas Jurgen or the former regime as he calls him, maybe like the chaotic scenes in and around 16 a lot as well. And we can see in data that Liverpool became more patient in attack and that corresponded with a higher chance prevention. So that could be that they are controlling things a bit more. If Klopp's going like end to end and direct and that's creating a chaotic moment, that's maybe what you don't want if you're not prepared to defend against them. But it sometimes also depends a bit on the players you have. This is the important thing to remember because you have tactical systems but the players really make them work because that's how football is. And so when you look at the players you got on the pitch last season against Newcastle, for instance, Liverpool had Alexander Arnold playing in one of them. And when you play Alexander Arnold he has lots of dialogue with Mo Salah especially. They're two probably most key creative players. And so Salah would receive the ball in white areas from Alexander Arnold. And when Salah is there, obviously teams are worried about him and they'll put markers straight to him straight away. They'll create space for others because that's where he is. But when Salah can't dribble past three players at once, he can play it back to Alexander Arnold because he can spot all the players on the other side of the pitch and Alexander Arnold has the skill set to ping it to the other side. But the players they've brought in, like Jeremy Fringpong, he can't really do that. He's a different kind of player. He'll play on the outside and he'll try and run past you, which is a very different thing. Against Bournemouth as Wirtz brings the ball forward. An example I'm showing on a board right now, it goes wide to Frimpong who is wide. He'll then carry the ball forward. You've got Salah and everyone inside and he'll maybe try and play like an hourly ball across the box.

[Ayob Akimolere]

How he passes the ball, that squiggly.

[J.J. Bull]

Line, the exact line that you can't see if you're listening, yes, that's exactly what happens. But is this what Slot wants him to do or is this what players are individually deciding to do? Because we know that Slot's probably building up a bit deeper. But when you're building up deeper, you need a player like Alexander Arnold to try and get you forward because that's the kind of player that can do that. Whereas Frimpong's more like get you forward, he drives you forward on the wing. But Frimpong as well as example against Bournemouth when he was playing is the only example I've got of him when he receives the ball. In this exact example I've got here, you can see that Florian Wirt's running through the middle is trying to get into this space. Now Slot also says he loves deep runs. He thinks that's really important in football. So you run into space from deeper positions. And I think Alexander Arnold in this situation would try and find this pass that would take Liverpool in a straight attack and he can go forward and be transitional. But does Slot want him to make this pass? Is he wanting to slow it down and try and keep control and arrive in the final third in a more controlled manner? Because we're speaking about rest defense last week. And so when Liverpool get forward really quickly, maybe you make decisions too quickly and you're not in a good rest defense situation. So you can concede transitions and then you're not prepared to deal with them. The other option that Frimpong might have in a situation like this that Alexander Arnold often had was to play it wide to Mo Salah. That's what they would often do. Instead the ball doesn't come through. In this exact example against Bournemouth, Fierce doesn't get the ball he really wants. He wants the ball. He's in space. And what you get is a quick back and forth between Szobozlai and Frimpong on the wide areas. And then they just don't make the passes at the coup to take them forward. And so the individuals in this situation are they doing what Slot wants them to do and slow it down and control it which then means that you're not accessing players at the pitch quicker or is it because the players don't have the skill set to do it? Because when this move continues the ball ends up with Balister tries to to force it long because he likes to play long forward passes like Jurgen Klopp does. But this is kind of what we're seeing. So without Alejandro Arnold there, they have to progress in a different way. And that might be having knock on effects to other parts of the team.

[Ayob Akimolere]

Okay, that's nice. But I guess one of the reasons they brought in someone like Florian Wirtz John is to help with that creative load. How have you gauged his first couple of games at Liverpool? But also is he being used to his highest potential?

[John McKenzie]

Yeah, I think we should go back and focus on what JJ was talking about with respect to control and what Slot sees that control as. Because as he's saying control is as he wants to do it is very different from what maybe we might Expect from other elite teams where often in the sort of post guardiola world, the idea is that you squeeze opponents deep into their own penalty box and then you possess the ball quite safely because you've got the space to do it. Actually, slot is quite different to that because when he's talking about control, he's saying we're not going to play the first pass forward. We're going to wait until we can decide the moment when we should go and we should have those tempo shifts. So often what you see slot teams doing is having the ball along their back line, moving it backwards and forwards until they find that example that JJ was showing was like, you make the decision when do we go forward? And the idea is that you wait until the opportune moment to do that. So lots of control being done, but in the back line rather than further up the pitch and deep in your own half. Now that's fine when you've got Trent Alexander Arnold as your creative player in the team because he is going to be in that back line all the time and it'll be easy for you to find him and he'll be able to make those decisions about when to change the tempo and has the ability to go both ways on the field. So it gives you a huge amount of upside as a team. The problem is when you get rid of Trent Alexander Arnold, you bring in Frimpong and you make your creative player now Florian Wirtz, because it raises a question about where do you want Wirtz to thrive on the pitch? Do you want him to drop in deep and get involved in this slower buildup at the back and then make the decision about when you're going to play the ball forward? Because if you do that with someone like Wirtz, it is going to give you plenty of sustainable forward momentum. But the problem then is that when the ball goes forward, Liverpool want to attack quickly. It's a tempo shift. It means that Wirtz isn't in and around the box. And alternatively, if you want to keep Wirts around the box where you might want him to be, maybe your progression will be slightly less sustainable. And we saw that example at JJ game where it seems as though Szobozlai and Frimpong didn't make the best decision about when to go forward. So this is the first question that we need to think about when we think about why is it that Florian Witzen maybe hasn't had the greatest start to his time at Liverpool? And I think we should explore that a little Bit more because as we're saying it's about where should we play Wirtz on the pitch to get the most out of him. And for me the answer to that is in the final third. Because as I see it, Florian Wirtz is what I call a high volume final third player. What that means is he just likes to get a load of touches in the final third and he likes to do that in such a way that he can exploit space, he can create space for his teammates and he can then manipulate that space and generate chances for them. So on the data in front of me here on this viz, what we've got is the players in the top five European leagues last season for the most final third touches. So this is the guys we're just getting. And touches here are just actions. We should think of them as actions rather than every time you touch the football. These are the guys who are just doing the most in the final third. I mean Florian Viet's here, third on the list behind players like Jeremy Doku, Michael Elise, Kevin De Bruyne is here, Lamine Yamal, best player in the world probably at this point in time. These are players who you want to have on the ball. You want them to have a lot of actions and you want to have them on the ball near the goal. Florian Wirtz is in that, in that group. So already it's kind of raising questions about Liverpool having the majority of their control in a deeper area. How does that influence and impact the way that Wirtz is playing? I just want to run through a sequence from Wirtz from last season just to show you, give you a real concrete example of what this looks like on a football pitch. This is Viets playing for Leverkusen against Liverpool. What I want to show is that this is exactly what being a high volume final third player looks like. So all the time in these sequences I'm going to show is just going to be me pointing out that Florian Wirtz has found space. What he's going to do is find space, receive the ball, move the ball on quickly and then find space again. So we got Tapsoba here, the defender on the ball, carrying the ball forward from a deep position. Wirtz has found space between the lines. He's showing for the ball, he's going to receive the ball and his first thought here is I can get the ball through to Granit Xhaka in the channel so that he can get to the byline and play a cutback, which is exactly what he does. So immediately receive, show the ball, move the ball onto a more dangerous area. Granit Xhaka plays the ball across and it gets actually played immediately out by the centre back. It comes out for a throw in. But I've included this because I think it's kind of interesting. Because immediately Wirtz is showing for space here. So Xhaka is going to take the throw in, Wirtz is going to be there to receive it. And Liverpool in this instance are going to be a little bit slow to get to him. And so Wirtz can just take the ball down, control it, play it back to Xhaka and then immediate thought, find space. So he's played the pass, finding space. Xhaka bounces the play off a teammate who can actually play the ball into Wirtz's feet. Because Wirtz has found space again. So again, just high volume of touches actions. Moving, finding space, manipulating space. You can play the ball back to a deeper position now so one of the centre backs will get it. But again, as soon as he's done that, he's finding space. Now Liverpool are wary of this. So one of the Liverpool players actually comes and marks him. But at that point he still is able to peel off the back of the player into space again when the ball is played forward and is able to receive the ball in these areas where he's so dangerous from around the edge of the penalty area because he receives that ball. He has lots of players around him, but he's able to play just a little chip pass into the feet of Frimpong, who is his teammate at Liverpool now. And Frimpong has a brilliant chance in front of goals.

[Ayob Akimolere]

What's interesting here is that the natural outlet for Frimpong is to go to Wirtz and then Wirtz is to go to Frimpong. But unfortunately, unfortunately Fring Pong is staying wide. So obviously Vert is also not influential in that movement as well, right?

[John McKenzie]

Yeah. But I think what's so interesting about this is that what you're getting from this is you're not necessarily seeing like incredible things all the time. Right? It's not like big actions. They're all lots of little small actions that when you aggregate them together you're like suddenly you recognize this guy is making the whole attack tick along and actually what he's doing is gradually creating space and you don't realize it. This constant pass move, find space opens up the opposition to the point where Frimpong can then come inside, find space. And he can. He has the ability then not only to create that space, but find him with a really nice little pass. This is what he's really good at. This is the area you want to get him in. And this is not the area where Liverpool are finding him in. And I think what's really interesting is that as you go back to that data showing his high volume of touches last season, this is the top 10 players. There's no Liverpool player in this list. In fact, if we look at the teams, you've got Bayern munich, Manchester City, Paris St Germain, these are all teams who like to play in that, I would say more Guardiola inspired way, where you want to have controlled possession higher up the pitch, around the edge of the box, where you can then have these elite players like Viet who can break down those low blocks and be dangerous. We do have Lamina Marlon here. He's probably the outlier playing for Barcelona.

[Ayob Akimolere]

I mean, he's a unicorn. Come on, man.

[John McKenzie]

But he's, yeah, he's the best player in the world and obviously everything they want to do flows through him. But no Liverpool players I think is interesting. And you know, this then shows up in the data from this season so far. Obviously with the caveats that we've only got two games so far in the Premier League. But the reason why I'm showing this table of Florian Wirtz's touches per area over the last four seasons is because I think it shows quite starkly the differences between the way that Wirtz is playing now for Liverpool than the way he was playing for Leverkusen. So I've gone back to Jabbiolon's first season at Leverkusen. Now in that first season he joined midway through, so the numbers are slightly down, so you can see only 65 touches. But in the following season, this is the, the famous Leverkusen season where they nearly won everything, didn't quite win the Europa League.

[Ayob Akimolere]

They went unbeaten in the league at least.

[John McKenzie]

He gets 85 touches per game on average. So high volume touches like he's getting a lot of touches. The Liverpool so far that's dropped down by about 20. So 20 fewer actions from him on the pitch for Liverpool so far. With a caveat that the teams that they're playing are obviously trying to stop Liverpool from having control. But so far you're not getting the most out of Wirtz because he's just not having the ball as much as he would. And then if we start breaking it down by the area on the pitch where he's having it again. Stark things start showing up. Touches in his own penalty area double what they've been before at Leverkusen and a defensive third as well, jumping right up. So suggesting that he is having to drop deeper and help out in that buildup at times as well. Middle third even still a bit lower. But the big thing that I think stands out for me is this attacking third number is basically half the amount of touches in the final third that he was getting for Leverkusen. And understandably his touches in the opposition penalty area are down as well. So regardless of what this is going to look like for Wirtz in future, at the moment the reason why I think Wirtz is not looking as good as potentially he has done in the past is because he just isn't being put in those situations that he likes to thrive in. So this is all of the theory. I thought it'd be good to have just a few concrete examples just to show exactly what's happening when he gets into these areas. Because it's not just that he's receiving the ball less in these areas, but actually the way that Liverpool play in areas doesn't really suit his play style.

[Ayob Akimolere]

Does it annoy you? Sometimes. Then when we have fans and they're like he was useless because actually when you zoom out of it fundamentally it's that he's not been used effectively in the way he was perhaps at Leverkus.

[John McKenzie]

Exactly. So he's getting the ball less than he would want in these areas. But also the way that Liverpool are playing is actually quite different and doesn't really suit what he wants to do, which is, as we've said, high volume, final third touch. Liverpool want to get through those, the midfield and the attacking third areas quicker than a team like Leverkusen. And as a result I think we're seeing less usefulness from Wirtz so far I've got three sequences. In these sequences I'm going to spend all the time being like, oh look, Florian Wirtz is in space. So just to. Just to give you the heads up on that before I get tedious, but Liverpool playing against Bournemouth and Florin Wirtz is in space. So he's going to receive the ball from Sobusai and when he does. So this is a really nice example of where you're getting that replacement for Trent Alexander Arnold, right? First ball comes in, he's able to play the ball into the channel to Mohamed Salah. Right. That's exactly what you would want your Trent Alexander Arnold replacement to do. Now Mohamed Salah runs to the byline and comes back and Liverpool do have like a bit of a settled possession here and they have the opportunity to try and break down a low block if they want to. Salah's played the ball back to Szoboszlai via Frimpong. And what we've got now is this situation where this is great, right, because you've had Wirtz starting a little bit deeper. He started to play off and then they've bided their time long enough in the forward area to bring Wirtz back into play, get him in space. Now what you would think is if you were trying to make the most of Wirtz, what you do is get the ball to him here and see him doing some of the things we saw him doing for Leverkusen where he's, you know, manipulating space, bringing his team teammates into play. But actually what ends up happening here is that Silbersai does what you might expect Liverpool to do in previous seasons, which is use those wide triangles to generate a chance, right, so you get double movement here. So Frimpong goes in behind Salah, comes deep for the ball. Szobozzlai plays the ball to Salah. And this is what I mean about speeding up the play. Salah just takes an immediate first time cross here into the box. You've got Ekitike, you've got a strike to aim at. Now you can thrive in chaotic situations. Why not just get the ball in there and see what breaks down effectively what that means is you've got got Wirtz in a perfect position to do the things he does well but they decide not to use it. Here's another clip. So this is from the second half. So now Liverpool playing in the other direction and we've got Konate carrying the ball from deep and he's under pressure from the Bournemouth players but he's able to play the pass to Wirtz who guess what? He's in space.

[Ayob Akimolere]

He's in space again.

[John McKenzie]

He is in space. So this perfect situation, because what this does is because they play through the press, they've got a bit more of a transitional, like an artificial transition as we would call it, a situation with Wirtz in space and then essentially 4v3 really against the Bournemouth back line. Now Wirtz has really nice access to Salah so he plays the ball into Salah's feet. And in this situation you're looking at the way that Bournemouth's back line is opened out and you think, you know this is going to be very dangerous. So Salah tries to play Wirtz immediately in behind but it doesn't quite come off properly. He slightly miskicks it and so Viet has to stop his run, turn around and come back. But fortunately he's still close to Salah so it's fine. He plays the ball directly into his feet. And these are the sorts of situations that we were talking about again with Leverkusen before which is Viet's getting close to teammates and moving the ball around quickly and creating space in that way. So he plays the ball back to Salah but you can see immediately he's in that scenario where he's like okay, I'm here, I'm open. He's showing for the ball very visibly with his body language. But Mohamed Salah looks up and he sees there's a 2V one on the other side of the pitch that you can see. The Bournemouth fullback is isolated against two Liverpool players. Now Salah's immediate thought is if we can get the ball into that area then it's going to be almost guaranteed chance of a goal, tries to play the pass doesn't come off and goes to the centre back. And it's worth saying that this is a perfectly fine way of playing. This is the way Liverpool play. They look for these quick plays where they can destabilize the defence, get in behind and they have the players who can really exploit them. Doesn't come off. But it's another nice example of what Wirtz is expecting and how he wants to play. Not really matching with the way that Liverpool are playing right now as well. I've got one final example of this.

[Ayob Akimolere]

Wirtz in space.

[John McKenzie]

Can I get in? Wirtz starts off in space in this one but the reason I've included this one is because I've watched all of Wirtz's actions in the three games he's played for Liverpool in competitive games so far. And this is one of the few examples I could find of him receiving the ball in the sorts of areas where he would want to and being able to do the things on the ball that he might want to do. The other two examples, there's hundreds of those you can go through and you can see the play just being maybe slightly quicker than he would want. More direct. Cross is going into the box when he's at the edge of the box and would maybe want to break things down a bit more. This is an example of him Wirzing a little bit. So yeah, in space.

[Ayob Akimolere]

Have you Just made up a word. Wirzing.

[John McKenzie]

Wirzing. He's in space. He's going to receive the ball from Dominik Silobazai, but as soon as he receives it, and this is what a smart player he is, he now recognises that the space that is available is this space has opened out in the midfield. It's behind him. He's got his back to the space, but he's already thinking, how do I get into that space? And there's two options. He can either carry the ball around or he can get there after playing the ball off, which is what he decides to do. So he lays the ball back to MacAllister, finds his way into that space. Mac Allister plays the ball into Szoboszlai. And again, this is like really nice positional play, right? You're using the position of your players to just generate means of playing through lines of pressure. Szobozlai is through the next line of pressure, but you can see Wirtz is in space again and he does receive the ball back. And this is a really nice example, actually, if you see the clip live of him manipulating space in the way that he does, because what he does with Tyler Adams coming across the Bournemouth player, he's going to try and close him down. The ball's coming across his body, so he shows Adams one way, but then he takes his touch quite heavy the other way so that Adams momentum carries him off in the opposite direction and Wirtz can come back inside into space. So now he's got to. How many minutes in spaces have we had in this? In space? But the beauty of this is that not only does he. Does he find space himself, so he has time to make the pass as well as he can. He's got the ball under control. He's also pulled in two Bournemouth players and that means that he's created a free player in Szoboszlai again through the line. So he plays that pass into Szobozzai's feet and again immediately thinks, where's the space? Where's the most dangerous space for me to be? And you can see him making that run here. Now, in the event, what ends up happening here is that Silberslai plays the ball to Gakpo, Gakpo plays across into the box, and it goes immediately to the. The. I think of the goalkeeper again in this instance. So again, just a bit of a discrepancy between what Wirtz wants to do and what Liverpool seem to be wanting to do this season in that they want to sort of attack fairly quickly. They want to get the ball into the box, from wide areas into Hugo Ekatike who's, you know, it's the first time they've had a nine like this for quite a while. And so, yeah, raises questions, I think, and a couple of questions that Slot has to answer. So I think the two main ones are the thing we started off talking about is what happens when you take your creative passer from the back line and put them further forward in the field. How does that influence Wirtz? And then the second question is what influence does it have? If your creative player is a guy who wants to, his instinct is to slow the game down, create space, exploit space, and the rest of the team want to play quickly. They want to try and generate chaos to destabilize the opponent and attack in those situations. Those are the two questions that Slot has to ask himself, I think, in order to get the most out of Florian Veers going forward in the future. I think he will find answers to those questions. It's obviously very early days right now, but I think it's just really interesting showing how you take a player from one context, put them in another context and that player can look much less as though they're thriving than they were in the former context. Yeah.

[Ayob Akimolere]

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[Ayob Akimolere]

Right, let's talk about Liverpool some more because Ekatiko, he started off well, hasn't he?

[John McKenzie]

Yeah. What an impressive start to his Premier League career. I think we've all enjoyed watching him play. He scored three goals in three competitive games, hit the ground running. And I think we can actually contrast what has happened with Ektike with what's happened with Wirtz, because as we said, Wirtz is a player coming from a team, a context where they're playing to his strengths and he's now going to a team where those strengths haven't been played to so far. What we've got in Ekitike I think is the opposite. It's taking a player from one context in which they're thriving and putting them in another context which is similar to that and they've thrived. So what's the lesson we learned from there? But I've got some data here just to help you out. So this is the team's with the most goals from fast breaks in the top four leagues in Europe last season. A fast break, for those people who are wondering, is basically a fancy name for a counter attack. So the opted definition is an attempt created after a team quickly turned defence into attack, winning the ball in their own half. So this is. Yeah, these are Goals that are starting from deeper areas in particular. And I think what the interesting thing that we learned from this is that Liverpool last season scored the most goals from from fast breaks. And if we look at the team second on the list, it's Frankfurt who scored 12 goals in four fewer games. Fast breaks obviously are coming from turnover situations which are slightly different from what we've been talking about what slot wants to do. But those fast breaks are generating the same kind of conditions that slot wants to generate in possession, which is keeping the ball in deeper areas and then having those tempo shifts. So you generate artificial transitions, so artificial fast breaks almost where you're able to create a lot of space in the opposition's defensive structure. There's a lot of space to attack and you've got the players who are really good at doing that. And guess what? Ektike is very good at doing that. So another piece of data for you here. Another viz, this is fast break statistics from the players, individuals from around the top four leagues in Europe again last season. So we can see here Ekitike is third on that list when we break it down in terms of expected goals created per game from these sort of fast break scenarios. So this is a guy who thrives at playing in those sorts of scenarios where there's lots of space to attack. He can run in behind or receive the ball from a midfielder who's carrying the ball through the lines. This is a guy who's going to do well. And you know, before I showed you that list of players with high volume final third engagement in games in Europe, there was no Liverpool players on that list. If we look at this list, there is a Liverpool player on it and it is Mohamed Salah. Mohamed Salah is another player who thrives in these sorts of situations. So Liverpool clearly, as we saw from the previous graphic, generating these sorts of conditions for players who thrive in these sorts of scenarios. So what I just wanted to do quickly is just show you the context within which the last five Equitike goals came in and then compare them with the context within which the last five Salah goals came in in open play. That's important because Salah had a lot of penalties. I know, because we won't talk about.

[Ayob Akimolere]

The penalties, we won't talk about that. Move on.

[John McKenzie]

What I think is really interesting here is there's a few things that we can notice about each situation that I think ports across to every single goal that we're going to talk about quickly here. That is one, there's lots of space that's opened out, the opposition's defence is badly positioned and often the ball is between the lines of the defence and the Midf Frankfurt have the ball. There's lots of space to attack the opposition. Hoffenheim's back line is all over the place and there's plenty of space for them to attack. This is a game against Bochram. Again, this is a ball in behind this time. But again, lots of chaos in the defensive team and lots of space to attack. And this is what we see just over and over again, receiving the ball in between lines, lots of space between back lines, maybe not even a full back line as in this case. And these are the areas that Ekitike is thriving in. This is the goal against spurs that most people might remember, because Ekitike receives the ball in the channel and then he comes back inside and scores from that. Again, lots of space in between the lines. All the same sorts of things that we're talking about here. And again, this goal against Heidenheim at the end of last season, where you can see all of the things that I'm talking about happening. If we then go and look at the last five goals that Salah scored, we see similar things happening. I say similar things because this is the Bournemouth camera angle, which doesn't show you a huge amount, but believe me, this is obviously an open transition situation. I trust you.

[J.J. Bull]

I trust you.

[John McKenzie]

You can see the back line all over the place. Lots of space to attack. Ball between the lines means this is going to end in a goal. This is actually slightly different because this is a tight turnover. So Liverpool win the ball back when the opposition are in possession. But as a result of that, they are able to generate this sort of similar situation where there's lots of space in the back line for Salah to exploit. Here's a perfect example of a goal against spurs where you can see that the ball carrier here has the ball in space between the two lines and Salah can run off the back of that line and score a goal goal against Palace. This is a bit more aerial, but again, lots of space. I'm just reiterating this because I think it's really interesting that the last five goals that they both scored have come from very, very similar sorts of scenarios. And this is the final goal in that comeback against Bournemouth where Salah scored that goal. So I think really interesting, the lesson that we learned from this is that if you take a player from a team that they're thriving in and you put them in your team doing similar things to the team that you've bought the player from, then you shouldn't be that surprised to see that player hitting the ground running. And I think, interestingly enough, maybe the irony here is that the goals that Ekitike is scoring maybe not the kind of goals you would expect to see him scoring. I think the majority of goals that he scored last season were much closer to the goal. But this is what you get when you buy an elite player. Even when Liverpool maybe aren't at their best, he's still scoring those goals from the edge of the box. And Liverpool will improve. He will therefore improve because they are doing the things that he is good at. So I have a lot of hope to see Ekitike right at the top of that goal scoring table at the end of the season.

[Ayob Akimolere]

Ekatike off to a great start Wirt room for improvement MO Salah last season greatest player ever this season. Are we seeing how Liverpool perhaps are looking to be again less. Less reliant on him?

[J.J. Bull]

Maybe because there's. I mean he won't be 33, which I think he is now, forever. Like he wasn't 32 forever exactly like most human beings as well. That's true of most. You want to plan for the future and they've bought players they wanted now like Wirtz obviously has come in and Ekitike. So this is what you're looking at now. And it's interesting whether his role will change, but we only have two Premier League games to go in this season. So the numbers I have that show that he has had fewer touches and made fewer dribbles and attempted fewer shots, they're caveated by. There's only two games that we've seen him play in the Premier League. But also the two teams they're playing against were playing in a really aggressive man to man system. So what Slot has said is like if you're playing really open transition and man to man, it's very hard to do anything tactical because you're just having to just deal with constant battles. So there's nothing really you can do. And what we know from Salah is that last season he had to get well. Slot tried to build something around him so he didn't have to do so much defensively. And he had a great season. He scored a thousand goals less than that. So we see him in different screenshots of any game where he's still in those high positions to receive the ball when Liverpool are going forward really quickly. So let me say we want to be fast in transition and Salah was one of their main outlets take the ball. You can rely on him to control it and take on people and do really well with that. But if you go back through Liverpool games where he's not that effective. It's often when he's not supported by players around him. And that comes on back to the players that they've signed like Frimpong and stuff like that. So in a game that Newcastle beat them which is a League Cup Final. Salah on passing network looks very isolated because you have Quansah who's basically centre back playing at right back. He's not going to get forward because that's not his skill set. Which then means you have to help turn build another way. And Dominik Szoboszlai drops deeper which is what we've seen when he was playing right back in the last game that we're talking about. So you don't have the wide triangles Joe mentioned earlier that are really important to how Liverpool play and traditionally have built. They've traditionally built with wide triangles. But they're now playing kind of through the middle with a striker who's running in behind. You've got Wirtz who's also getting a lot of touches through the middle when they're running in behind. And so suddenly that means that maybe you have to hold more width with Salah and Gakpo on the other side. So then when your fullbacks come in like we're talking about earlier. You want to be wise or Frimpong's coming in and Frimpong pushes up. Then the other team has to work out who covers the normal left midfielder. Does that take away space for Salah? Does it become quite as important creatively in the final third if he's not receiving it deep to then run with it. It does like make it a little bit difference. And the game that he's played against Newcastle, Salah really isolated. Szobozlai is not a right back. Did a decent job to be fair. But you can just see that the network is not exactly as probably you'd want to get Salah into his dangerous situations. However he is still dangerous. So when you get him and you can ping the ball to him up top, see he's starting really wide right of the Newcastle defense. You play a long ball towards him. He's one of the best players in the world. He can control that no bother. And then moves inside as ever he has done. There's actually a situation quite early in the game where if it weren't for brilliant defending by Tino Libramento whose name I remember if it was not for him stepping in at exactly the right time. 100% Liverpool are going to score early and then they can try and get that control that Slot wants. But Newcastle turned this into a game that Liverpool do not want to play end to end. And you see he wants to try and get control and then move it forward and change tempo whenever you can. And in the past what Liverpool would do. I don't know if we'll see this so much this season is that when they're building up from the back like Kate might have a long pass out to Salah who drops from a wide right position to receives. And then you can play it backwards. And when you had Alexander Arnold that we talked about earlier. Alexander Arnold has a skill set to put onto his left foot, right foot and then ping it over the top for Salah to chase. And then he's your player that's taking you forward. But at the moment they've got ve dropping deeper to try and build up. That way when really you want the team to maybe build but then quickly change tempo. Get to the final third and then let Wiertz do all the magic. But then how does Salah combine with them in those situations. So the goal that Liverpool scored late against Newcastle Virtus not on the pitch and but I think you see more of what probably what Slot wants from Salah. But it's still not exactly what Salah may be best at anyway. Chaos versus control. So Konate has the ball late in the game. Newcastle have 10 men. The context is important and they've been run all game. And Newcastle are knackered now. But Kanati rather than trying to force it forwards puts his foot in the ball. We talked about this before. John's got a video when Brighton used to do this. This is why teams do this. Try and bait a press to try and open up the opposition team. And that's exactly what happens. Konate has a really clever. He shows the ball one way. Just swaps his body one way to move the defender to that side and then immediately plays at the other side of him. And this starts this high tempo move. So they're always slow, slow build up and then fast fast fast. And that's what you get. And that's where players like Wirtz will excel because they're amazing in these moments. So when this like one touch and two touch passing move goes on what you have is keys ends up playing it wide to Salah who's holding the width wide. You get Gaifel the other side. Actually it's Rio has come on at this point the young rad. And so when the ball goes out to Salah and they've played through this press, it's the first time they've managed to actually take advantage of Newcastle being a. Well, being a man down. And there's that famous step over from S to set up the youngster Rio to score that goal. And so Salah will combine with them really well. But what will be interesting to me is that how he combines with Vs in the final third will be interesting because you've got Eiki there as well. And last season you'd have had maybe a false 9 so you wouldn't have the extra player there and the extra player that you would have had there would be in a position to protect possibly again against counter attacks. And now you don't. So when you're a man down with your rest defense, which is really relevant, you then might come into these transitional moments where Salah might try and create something, but because he's got two players next to him in his space even, but also just not defending behind him, what happens when they lose those balls? And that's kind of what I think we're talking about last week, the rest defense and what Jamie Carragher was talking about with his bit on Monday Night Football. It's kind of interesting.

[Ayob Akimolere]

It's very interesting.

[John McKenzie]

I think it's worth like talking about. It's important to diversify your threat, right? If you're too reliant on one player, if that player doesn't perform, then you're not going to play as well. If you now have Mohamed Salah and also huge Ekitike in the team, then you're going to be more likely to have threat from both of those players. And it also makes it harder for teams to defend, right? Because if all your threat is coming through one player, they can double up on that player and it creates space elsewhere. But you don't worry about it so much because there's not any threat. As soon as you put that other threatening player into the front lineup it's like oh, do we double up on Salah? Do we double up on Nekitike? How do we balance this? So it's going to make Liverpool a better team.

[J.J. Bull]

This and also I'd add like just lastly they've got new players. It is a new team that they're building. They're moving on from what they were. They are doing that and that will take a little bit of time to get the chemistry right so there will be players out of position. It doesn't mean that the system is wrong or like they're suddenly bad. It's just these things will be teasing. But if consistent things do happen that cause those issues that we've talked about, that's when you start wondering whether they are able to defend their title like you suggested at the start of the show.

[Ayob Akimolere]

Yes, I like that. Very quickly before we go Rio Igomo's goal, I want your both your opinions on this. Is it a subur sly assist or a salaris?

[John McKenzie]

Yes, we'll leave it there.

[Ayob Akimolere]

John, jj, you've been brilliant. Bye bye.

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