Trent Alexander-Arnold believes that an ingenious tactical tweak by Jurgen Klopp ‘really made a difference’ for Liverpool as they dumped Arsenal out of the FA Cup on Sunday.
The Reds were fortunate to go in at half-time on level terms, with the Gunners having 13 shots to the visitors’ two but unable to find a way past Alisson Becker.
Barely had the second half begun than LFC looked notably different in attack, with Darwin Nunez shifting to the left flank, Cody Gakpo switched to centre-forward and Luis Diaz swapping to the right.
Klopp’s in-game solution reaped dividends as Liverpool ended up winning 2-0, and Trent pinpointed the alteration of the forward line as a key factor in the post-interval revival.
The 25-year-old told liverpoolfc.com: “We mixed it up, Darwin went a little bit wider and Cody went in the centre – I think that really made a difference. We were able to use Darwin’s speed one-on-one with their full-back and he created a lot for us in the second half.”
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The difference in Liverpool’s performance before and after half-time was massive, and the statistics bear that out. From losing the shot count 13-2 prior to the interval, the Reds had 10 from minutes 45-90+5 compared to Arsenal’s five (Sofascore).
Even in the early minutes of the second half, it was clear that Klopp’s tweaking of the front three had the desired impact, with Nunez’s pace giving Ben White nightmares, Gakpo (and latterly Diogo Jota) giving the Gunners’ defence far more to worry about and Diaz electric on the right.
Trent himself also benefitted from another switch by the manager, moving into a midfield role once Conor Bradley was introduced 15 minutes from time.
Elite coaches can identify tweaks which need to be made during the course of matches and implement them to winning effect, and that’s exactly what the Liverpool boss did yesterday.
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