As it goes with most things in life, nothing is ever as bad as it seems.
There was anger and disappointment – and that was just me in my living room – as Liverpool dropped points away at 17th place Luton Town.
Yet, after sleeping on it, you accept the result for what it is. Jürgen Klopp’s side were far from their best at Kenilworth Road, and the dropped points raises questions on whether talk of a potential title challenge are a year too soon for ‘Liverpool 2.0’.
Though with 2.85 expected goals worth of chances created to Luton’s 0.8, you can rationale that on another day Darwin Núñez (or others) takes their big chance at 0-0 and it’s a different game.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the day from a Liverpool perspective happened before kick-off, with Klopp shocking fans and Fantasy Premier League players alike by dropping the clubs only fit senior left-back in Kostas Tsimikas for right-footed central defender Joe Gomez.
The position isn’t unfamiliar to Gomez, it’s where he broke into the Liverpool team under Brendan Rodgers in 2015/16, where all six of his Premier League appearances came before a cruciate ligament injury halted an extremely promising start to his Anfield career.
Yet – until late Sunday afternoon – he hadn’t played there in eight years, since a 3-1 loss at Old Trafford (yes, it was the game with that Christian Benteke overhead kick).
It was a calculated risk by the management team. With Robertson out injured, Tsimikas (alongside Luke Chambers and Calum Scanlon, who shared minutes against Toulouse) has been a mainstay in the team. However, the Greece international hasn’t exactly set the world alight with his performances (a statement I’m sure will cause some debate).
This led to Klopp opting for the former Charlton Athletic defender on the left side of his defence. While the major events in the game happened after Gomez had departed – replaced by Tsimikas in the 67th minute – he was on the pitch long enough for us to draw some conclusions, both negative and positive, from him starting in that role.
Personally, I was positive about Gomez starting there when the team was announced.
In my head it would let Liverpool operate with a solid back three of Ibrahima Konaté, Virgil van Dijk and Gomez, allowing Trent Alexander-Arnold the freedom to step up into midfield and do the things he’s really good at. Except it didn’t really work like that. Here’s a look at his heatmap from Sunday’s game (via SofaScore).
While the South London native doesn’t tend to venture near the Luton box, he is positioned almost as an old school left midfielder, rather than an outside centre back in a back three. This was perhaps a result of the opposition.
Luton are the lowest-ranked side when it comes to possession, keeping the ball just 36.2% of the time. They want teams, especially the top ones, to come onto them, and leave gaps in behind for Luton’s speedy wingers to exploit. It’s unclear whether this was instruction or if it was seen as opportunistic (given how much analysis and planning goes into games today, you’d lean towards the latter).
What it did do, though, is play into the Hatters’ hands.
I’d like to preface this next part by saying that I don’t think Gomez played badly, he was decent throughout his jut over an hour worth of performance. Defensively he won his battles – winning seven of his ten duels (6/9 ground and 1/1 aerial). He nullified the threat of Issa Kaboré (who eventually provided the assist for Chong after Gomez had left the pitch).
