Harry Diamond
Danny Murphy has revealed the game plan that allowed Liverpool to dominate during the league leaders 1-0 victory at Tottenham this weekend.
Roberto Firmino scored the only goal of the game as Jurgen Klopp’s side continued their unbeaten start to the campaign, victory setting a new record for the best-ever start to a season of any club in Europe’s top five leagues.
Speaking on Match of the Day, Murphy highlighted the tactical change that saw Liverpool dominate proceedings at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the club’s interchanging front three forcing the Spurs defence to play narrow, giving space to rampaging full-backs Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson.
“The front three played a little bit differently in terms of their rotation,” Murphy explained. “They always have a little bit of this but Mane, Salah and Firmino – we tend to think of it as Firmino down the middle, Salah on the right and Mane down the left.
“But they were all over the place, all three of them, and they caused Tottenham all sorts of problems. They played quite narrow at times, which they do to allow those full-backs to bomb forward.
“And as the game went on you saw it more and more, it was more noticeable their little link-ups and how close they play together, and what that did is it meant that the Tottenham back-four played really narrow, and it gave more space for the full-backs to come out and Liverpool dominated the game in the first half.”
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