Three key talking points for Liverpool vs Burnley

Ah, feels like a while ago we played a Sean Dyche-less Burnley side. A 17:30 local kickoff at Turf Moor screams three more points for Liverpool to be honest. After two back-to-back league draws, (read: losses) it is rather time for the Reds to get all three points from up north in beautiful Lancs. A win against the Clarets will see us get back to the top of the league.

However, Arsenal can reclaim the spot in case they win against West Ham United; scheduled for after FT in Liverpool’s game. There are a few things we need to get right and we’ll go through them here.

Before we get to it, let’s just take a moment to soak in the fact that two of the Premier League’s leaders in terms of assists from defenders are from Liverpool. Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold are now level on that front, and Trent has the chance to go past Robbo and take the throne for himself against Vincent Kompany’s side. Robbo continues to recover from a shoulder injury.

Here are TKT’s three talking points for Liverpool, ahead of Burnley:

1. Set-Piece Threat

Our shape when it comes to defending set-pieces is a bit sus for a club as big as ours. Defending open play? Make no mistake, Liverpool are up there. But there’s something about set-pieces that makes our defending look clueless. Even if it does not result in a goal always, a corner against the Reds nowadays is an anxious moment in the passage of play for sure.

Not that Burnley have scored a lot of goals from corners or free-kicks this season, we must make sure to defend well in those situations. 25% of all goals the Reds have conceded are courtesy of set-pieces. The latest of those was against Arsenal. The likes of Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate among others surely know of this, and it is probably just a matter of time before we get to the root cause of wobbly defending in situations like that and ensure we no longer concede goals from dead ball situations.

Gabriel of Arsenal rose high to head the opener against Liverpool. Martin Odegaard took his corner kick beautifully.

2. The curious case of Dominik Szoboszlai

Why is The Hungarian Gerrard blowing hot and cold? Is Jurgen Klopp utilising him where he works best? Let’s look at the last two league games. It felt like two different players took the field. It was surely a different player against Manchester United. Against Erik ten Hag’s side, his heatmap is evident of the fact he hugged the touchlines while letting Trent Alexander-Arnold take up the half-spaces.

However, against Arsenal, he was here, there, everywhere. Even though Trent inverted more often than not, Dom was not as close to the touchline against United, and put in tremendous amounts of work in the game against the Gunners. Similar number of touches on the ball in both games, but Dom was a much more effective passer in the Arsenal game with a pass accuracy rate of 84.2%. Against United, he was at 77.5%.

It is clear that Klopp sees him as a box-to-box midfielder, but with Trent inverting so often on the right-hand side, trying Dom on the left for a few games, until Alexis Mac Allister returns is surely not a bad shout. We had Gini Wijnaldum play that B2B role on the left, so might as well give it a try.

Dominik Szoboszlai and his heat-maps against Manchester United (L) and Arsenal (R) via WhoScored.

3. Injury Management

When has this not been a problem? In our current setup itself, we have so many injury-prone players. Joe Gomez, Joel Matip, Ibrahima Konate, Thiago Alcantara, Curtis Jones, and Luis Diaz as well.

At the moment, the list of Liverpool players unavailable due to injury includes Matip to start, the left-back pair of Kostas Tsimikas and Andy Robertson, the Spanish midfield duo of Thiago Alcantara and Stefan Bajcetic, Alexis Mac Allister, striker Diogo Jota, wingers, Ben Doak and Luis Diaz (came off with an injury against Arsenal). Two players from the reserves and we have a potent injured XI.

Considering the incidents against the Gunners, we will likely see a backline of Trent, Virgil van Dijk, Ibrahima Konate and Joe Gomez. Manager Jurgen Klopp likes to chop and change between Curtis Jones and Ryan Gravenberch so one of those two will have a starting role against the Clarets.

Wataru Endo is slowly proving to be our best investment in the summer transfer window and is expected to start at Turf Moor alongside fellow 2023 summer signing Dominik Szoboszlai. A frontline of Mohamed Salah, Cody Gakpo and Darwin Nunez is the only possible combination we can think of considering the injury issues.

Harvey Elliott is among those who can play on the right wing, but he has been a super-sub for Jurgen Klopp coming into the middle of the park, so it is best if we stick to Elliott as a player who can play in the midfield instead of the wing, especially when we have Mo.