Amid an otherwise unspectacular Premier League weekend, Liverpool vs Chelsea stands out as the most significant and high-profile fixture. Both clubs are members of the Premier League’s increasingly dominant big six, so Saturday’s result could have an instrumental bearing on the table come the end of the season.
But Antonio Conte is yet to beat Jurgen Klopp since taking up his first job in England last summer, and reversing that trend will require finding the right answers to these three crucial questions…
3-5-2 or 3-4-3?
The successful implementation of 3-4-3 was the driving force behind Chelsea’s title charge last season, inspiring their 13-game winning run, but it’s become a little predictable this term and some opponents have discovered its weaknesses.
Accordingly, we’ve seen the Blues switch to 3-5-2 on occasion, including against West Brom last weekend, and it has provided two obvious advantages – in addition to placing an extra body deeper to increase protection of the defence, it forces Eden Hazard and Alvaro Morata to link up together as frequently as possible in the final third.
We saw how potent the duo can be against the Baggies when they scored three of the Blues’ four goals. It makes sense to keep that partnership in tact, but Chelsea’s players may prefer to revert back to type for such a big game. Likewise, three forwards gives Chelsea a better chance of pressing a Liverpool defence notorious for costly individual errors.
What can be learned from Chelsea’s last two meetings with Liverpool?
There were few clubs Antonio Conte failed to beat during his first season in the Premier League, but Liverpool were one of them. Even if the first meeting, a 2-1 defeat at Stamford Bridge, can be written off because it preceded the switch to 3-4-3, the Reds still held off the Blues at Anfield in a 1-1 stalemate at the end of January.
Perhaps it’s a coincidence but there are surely lessons for Conte to learn from those games about Liverpool’s strengths and Chelsea’s weaknesses, especially in the second instance. Although Diego Costa missed a penalty to seal the win, Liverpool dominated the ball and the match, finishing up with 63% possession. If Chelsea let that happen again on Saturday, they might not be lucky enough to come away with a point.
How can Chelsea stop Mohamed Salah?
Liverpool’s summer swoop for Mohamed Salah inevitably adds a new sub-plot to this fixture. The Egyptian winger didn’t get much of a chance at Chelsea but he’s already established himself as one of the most potent attacking threats in the Premier League since joining the Reds, topping the division’s scoring charts with nine goals.
He’s become an essential part of Liverpool’s game-plan so if Chelsea can find a way of stopping him on Saturday, there’s every chance the home side will struggle to find the net. Of course, that’s easier said than done – Salah is a frightening asset, especially on the counter-attack – but by no means impossible.
It could require Chelsea’s defence to line up deeper to limit the space he likes to exploit, or the wing-backs to sit alongside the three centre-halves and make sure there aren’t any gaps in the channels. Then there’s the jugular option – choosing a player to specifically mark Salah out of the game.
Despite his talent, Salah’s relative newness to the league has spared him from receiving that kind of attention just yet – so Chelsea might be surprised how quiet the forward becomes if they set up specifically to stop him playing.
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