Digging Deeper Into Liverpool’s Community Shield Loss to Arsenal

With a loss to Arsenal in the books, we dig a little
deeper into what it means for Liverpool.

Ah, the Community Shield. A trophy if you win it and just
another meaningless friendly if you lose it. And that’s exactly
what Liverpool did today. They lost to Arsenal, making it the second straight year the Reds
have lost the Community Shield on penalties to start the
season.

Just like last season, it would be unwise to read too much into
this game. But that doesn’t make for interesting content, so here
we’ll evaluate what we saw and what it means and how it can inform
us as the season wears on.

The first half was very boring. You know, something you’d expect
from two teams that have had about a week’s worth of time total of
preseason. Coming into this one, Arsenal had played just one
friendly against MK Dons last week. While Liverpool had a whooping
two friendlies while they were in Austria. The first 45 minutes
were separated by one really good attacking movement from Arsenal.
Bukayo Saka played a long switch in the attacking half to
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang who then did very well to find the net.
Liverpool’s attack was very slow and they weren’t able to create
much.

The second half was quite the different story especially when
Takumi Minamino came on. Liverpool changed up the formation and
found a way to breakdown Arsenal with a formation change, but more
on that later. They would not go on to find a winner and ended up
losing on penalties. Such is life. But what does all of this mean?
Let’s dig deeper into some of the interesting facets from the
match.

World Class Players Are Important

This may come as a shock to everyone reading this, but Liverpool
play worse without Jordan Henderson and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
The two key players for the Reds have been missing from preseason
with injury. I am being a bit tongue in cheek here, but without
Trent or Henderson on the field, the whole right side of
Liverpool’s attack just….doesn’t work. Mo Salah only had 11 touches
in the first half, of which only two were inside the opponent’s
penalty area. Neco Williams is a fantastic young talent who is a
decent deputy at rightback, but he’s not Trent. My suspicion is
that had Henderson been playing, Neco would’ve found the game much
easier — both offensively and defensively. Which leads well into my
next point.

A Formation Switch and A Role Player Could Bode Well
Against the Bunker

I couldn’t think of a quippy title for this section so I just
went with this. About halfway through the second half, Jurgen Klopp
switched formations and introduced Minamino to the game. Things
changed for the better.

There’s some debate about what the formation actually was. Was
it 4-2-3-1 with Salah as the one? Or was it a 4-2-2-2 with Bobby
and Mo up top and Taki with Mane underneath? Perhaps it was a bit
of both, but what was important about the switch is that it brought
another attacker on the pitch in sacrifice of a midfield player.
Being able to switch to this mid-match when things aren’t going
Liverpool’s way or even starting a match like this against the
bottom 12 in the league might give the Reds a leg up on breaking
down the bunker. Dropping Fabinho to CB and bringing on a
midfielder like Naby Keita means Liverpool can control the tempo
from back to front.

There’s talk that Liverpool need another forward from the
transfer market, but I think what we saw from Minamino today might
calm down those cries. Besides, it sure is nice not having to rely
on whether or not Divock Origi decides to have a good game.

Last season was obviously great. Liverpool won the league after
starting the season with a loss in the Community Shield. Should
this season spell the same? We shall see.