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Premier League 2019/20: How Liverpool deal with Fabiano’s injury?

When Fabinho went down holding his ankle in Liverpool’s game against Napoli last Wednesday, Liverpool collectively held their breath in the hopes that he would pop straight back up. Football supporters from around the world can buy Premier League Tickets online to enjoy its brilliant actions.

Two days later, it was confirmed by the club that the Brazilian would be out until the new year. Due to Fabiano’s quality, this is obviously a big blow at a busy time fixtures wise, and so it begs it the question of how Liverpool can deal with Fabiano’s absence.

In this tactical analysis, I’ll answer that question and show how Liverpool will adapt to the absence of Fabinho, by looking at Liverpool’s upcoming fixtures and assessing their midfield options.

The requirements of a six within Liverpool’s system

This section of the analysis could also have been titled what are Fabiano’s main strengths, and Liverpool’s other midfield options possess some of these requirements but lack others as we will discuss.

Therefore, Klopp must select which player operates at the six based on the game and the playing style of the opposition, as different opposition playing styles will change the requirements of the six slightly and priorities certain skills.

Press resistance

The first of the attributes we will discuss will be press resistance. This is defined as a player’s ability to retain possession or progress play while under pressure from the opposition. Fabinho is extremely press resistant and is comfortable to receive the ball while under pressure, in order to create better angles for teammates.

We can see an example of this below, where Fabinho receives the ball with a man at his back pressing. Fabinho has a quick scan and recognizes a player is pressing intensely from behind, and also recognizes the pass back to Lovren is a dangerous one, with Sergio Aguero pressing that pass already.

The passing lane to Van Dijk is also cut off by De Bruyne, and so Fabinho takes advantage of the Man City presser running too quickly to press, and simply shuffles the ball one way and protects it with his body.

This allows Liverpool to progress up the pitch through the space left by the presser, where rather than passing Fabinho uses his pace to sprint into space, allowing Roberto Firmino to remain in a higher position and make forward runs.

We can see a final example here, where Fabinho is again able to evade Man City’s press, using body feints to get around the presser and play the ball through the press. This calmness on the ball contributes to Fabiano’s 90.5% passing accuracy and 78.3% passing accuracy on forwarding passes.

How press resistant are Liverpool’s other options?

To begin with, we will talk about the obvious options to replace Fabinho Georginio Wijnaldum and Jordan Henderson. Wijnaldum is much more press resistant than Henderson, and as a result, in games where teams are expected to press Liverpool reasonably high, I expect Wijnaldum to play as the number six.

We can see some examples of Wijnaldum being press resistant below. Here, Wijnaldum drops into a double pivot monetarily to receive the ball from Van Dijk, who plays a progressive, risky pass to Wijnaldum. Wijnaldum’s technical ability is on show here, perfectly receiving the ball on his back foot with his back towards the pressing player, with his right foot in position for the ball to be taken away with a quick burst of acceleration.

We can see another example of Wijnaldum’s press resistance below, this time with two Barcelona players pressing him and two others surrounding him. Again, Wijnaldum’s technical ability is shown, with his body positioning and shielding of the ball excellent. He then has the awareness to notice the space left behind and flicks the ball behind him and follows it rather than choosing an easier option in laying it off to James Milner.

Although at times the simple pass back to Milner is the better option, here Wijnaldum breaks Barcelona’s press and is able to drive into space left by the pressers. It’s these kinds of risks that pay off that create goals or dangerous attacks, as Barcelona has less time to recover as they would if the ball had gone to James Milner. Wijnaldum has a pass accuracy this season of 91.9%, with a forward passing accuracy of 81.6%, both very impressive stats.

In possession

Another reason I believe Klopp prefers Henderson as a six to Wijnaldum is because of the movement Wijnaldum offers, while Henderson offers more in terms of passing. If you reverse the two, Wijnaldum has been guilty at times of being a passenger in possession against deep blocks, and Henderson probably offers less of a goal threat than Wijnaldum.

Henderson is much more effective with his long-range passing, with switches in play a key part of Liverpool’s game. Henderson averages a 53.5% long pass accuracy compared to Wijnaldum’s 68.9 %, however, Henderson attempts over five more per game, which gives some indication as to the confidence of both players in this part of the game.

We can see an example of the typical kind of pass Henderson completes every game, which allows Liverpool to stretch the opposition and try and exploit the space quickly.

Other options

With the options mentioned, the other midfielder is likely to be Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, particularly if he performs as he did against Brighton. Salzburg and Leicester away could call for the return of the Henderson, Wijnaldum and Milner midfield, depending on the form of Oxlade Chamberlain, and this midfield offers massive benefits out of possession but limits their offensive tactics largely to the front three.

The return of Lallana and Shaqiri could also be seen in games at home where they will be expected to break teams down, where a double pivot of Wijnaldum and Henderson could be used, which is something which occurs often when Liverpool struggle to build through a single pivot, which we can actually see in two examples already used.

In reality, the difference between a 4-2-3-1 and a 4-3-3 is while building up isn’t worth discussing, and out of possession Liverpool retreat to a 4-3-3 when they do play a more conventional 4-2-3-1 as they did last season, and so the players within the system are more important.

The option of Naby Kieta is also available to Klopp if looking to break sides down, where if he can perform to his best ability can break blocks down with his dribbling, and Adam Lallana’s ability to work in tight spaces is always one which is useful in breaking sides down, and so I would be shocked to not see him used as one of the midfield three over the busy Christmas period.

Conclusion

Fabiano’s injury has come at a busy time in the fixture list, but the fixtures that Liverpool have coming up are kind to them in terms of not missing Fabinho too much, as I have mentioned in this scout report. Henderson’s role in stopping counter-attacks will be decisive if Liverpool is able to keep clean sheets in these games, and Liverpool has got through tight games without Fabinho before. It will be interesting to see if they can maintain their form into this Christmas period, which could be a vital period in their season, as it was last year.

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