For a team that possesses fewer midfielders than the majority of their fans would prefer, Liverpool have certainly used a lot of combinations in the centre of their side this season. Jurgen Klopp’s set-in-stone 4-3-3 formation was used for the first 10 matches of the campaign, then largely abandoned for the next 10 before returning shortly prior to the World Cup break.
As the Reds used those tactics in their recent friendlies in Dubai against Lyon and AC Milan, it’s likely it will be the system they deploy when domestic football returns this week. While it would be absurd to pin a result on a formation, Liverpool have won six of 13 games when starting in a 4-3-3 framework this season, and six of nine with any others.
They need to improve their performance when employing their established tactics. The newly crowned world champions, Argentina, may have given them tips on how to do this. Or at least, that’s one reading of one of the answers assistant manager Pep Lijnders gave when conducting a pre-match press conference for Liverpool’s Carabao Cup clash with Manchester City.
