It wasn’t necessarily Curtis Jones’s winning goal against Chelsea last Sunday that exemplified the qualities that have underpinned Liverpool’s superb start to the season, but rather the tackle he produced moments earlier to deny Cole Palmer an almost certain goal at the other end.
Such a desire to get stuck in with the ‘dirty work’ has been a hallmark of Arne Slot’s team during the first few months of his tenure. Liverpool’s concession of just three goals in the Premier League and only five across all competitions has been down to a collective effort and not the sole responsibility of the back line.
Jones’s decisive intervention was just the latest example of a Liverpool player placing significance in their defensive duties. Slot has praised plenty of his midfielders and attackers recently for their work rate and determination to be difficult to play through.
Pride in keeping opponents at bay has been present throughout their club-record sequence of 11 wins from their opening 12 matches.
There are many factors influencing Liverpool’s strong foundations. Both Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate are in great form, full backs Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson have been given a slightly more defensive brief and nobody has batted an eyelid at Caoimhin Kelleher filling in for Alisson.
However, how the side has dominated and controlled games has also played its part.
“I think there are two reasons why we don’t concede a lot,” Slot explained. “One of them is that most games — almost all of them, maybe except for one — we dominated and controlled that for large parts of the game. It helps if you dominate, if you have the ball, in order that you then can’t concede.
“But I also like that if we have difficult parts of the game or for a large part of the game like we had against Chelsea, that the work-rate is incredible not to concede. And that is something that’s very important.
“If you combine that with having the likes of Virgil and Ibou and the two goalkeepers we’ve used until now, that is probably one of the reasons — these three elements — why we haven’t conceded that much.”
After the 1-0 win away at RB Leipzig in the Champions League in midweek, Liverpool have now kept seven clean sheets. There is no doubt that that side of their game has improved from last season when Jurgen Klopp’s team were guilty of gifting opposition teams too many chances, and that ultimately undermined their title challenge.
It is telling that none of Liverpool’s last five opponents have managed to achieve an xG (expected goals measure) greater than 1 (Chelsea: 0.99, Crystal Palace: 0.64, Bologna: 0.59, Wolverhampton Wanderers: 0.63 and West Ham United: 0.57). They just aren’t giving away many high-quality chances.
Slot’s team have also been more measured during games — ‘control’ is the buzz word used to describe their play — and they have managed to see out leads to greater effect. Even on two of the three occasions that Liverpool have gone behind so far this season, they have come back to win.
Improving 'big six' record key to any title challenge
Seemingly, Liverpool are a more robust defensive unit than the one which was beaten 3-1 by Arsenal when the clubs last met in north London in February, a contest when glaring defensive errors were punished and Konate was sent off.
Liverpool’s record against the traditional ‘Big Six’ was not great last season. They won only one out of 10 matches overall and registered three draws and one defeat in the games against Arsenal and Manchester City.
Improving on that front will be a must should Slot’s team have ambitions of turning a highly impressive start into a serious title challenge this season. Already defeating Chelsea and Manchester United bodes well in that regard.
Liverpool may have lost their last two league games at Arsenal but they have been faultless on the road so far this term — winning all six of their away games — and will face a team on Sunday that could be without 75 per cent of their first-choice defence.
“We all know that taking points from your competitor [is important],” Slot said. “And nobody knows in this early stage who is going to be your competitor or your biggest competitor, but I think we all know that Arsenal will be one of them and then dropping points against them or winning points against them, that is always important.
“I think it was three draws and one loss [against Arsenal and City] last season so if you use simple mathematics, if Liverpool could have won all three of them I think the league table would have been a bit different.
“It’s difficult to win an away leg against Arsenal, City or all the other ones but it’s something we are trying on Sunday definitely.” They will be attempting it with stable foundations.
