A lot of Liverpool’s play involves one player receiving and moving back with the other moving forward; naturally, their fullbacks position themselves to the inside of the wingers to automatically overlap once the ball is played wide.

The wide area is split up into two sections. The winger controls the wider section, while the fullback controls the section inside. First pass forward, then back, then through to the man running from deep. That man running from deep would be the fullback if the ball is played forward from the middle third.

Trent Alexander-Arnold was normally positioned deeper and wider on the right than left-back Konstantinos Tsimikas on the left against Sevilla, but he liked to drift inside.

How inverted the left-back becomes seems to depend on how wide the right-back positions themselves. They move as if they are attached at the hip by a string, pulling each-other back and forth across the pitch.

This was more noticeable in Liverpool’s second game of the day against Las Palmas, when Andrew Robertson was at times positioned inside, directly ahead of left center-back Nathanial Phillips. Conor Bradley likes to move wider to the right compared to Trent Alexander-Arnold.

This leaves a lot more room on the left, but it also means that the ball carrier always has three players within 10 yards to play off of. Then, when the ball is played wide, that overlapping run is made by the fullback automatically. The fact that the run is made nine times out of ten seems notable.

The left-back is going to cross more often from the edge of the penalty box, in the corner, while the right-back will cross from deep and cut in to shoot from the top of the penalty box. The left-back will get onto more crosses at the top left hand side of the box when the left-winger makes the run to the near post. The right-back will get more use against teams that defend deep in their own end.

And although it seems super positional on paper or in writing, it is not in person. There’s a structure to execute the passes but it is a very fluid structure that the player’s determine on the fly.

Match: Liverpool 4-1 Sevilla and Liverpool 0-0 Las Palmas, 11 August 2024