Follow the latest news and more with our LFC newsletter
For teams lacking Champions League football, the Europa League is a consolation without bloodshed.
In addition to providing the same point of monetary benefits, participation in European secondary club competitions requires English groups to play on Thursday and Sunday.
This tight three-day deadline occurs infrequently in Champions League competition, although in this case it depends on the number of devices through TV services.
In fact, Jurgen Klopp has spoken out vehemently against this in the past. He had to deal with the same thing last week.
READ MORE: Liverpool may simply point to the £13 million Burnley striker after Nabil Fekir’s scouting assignments
READ MORE: Changing Champions League rule to Jamie Carragher would not like to have an impact on Liverpool’s historic moments
READ MORE: Andy Robertson explains why Liverpool players ‘got off the plane’ following Jurgen Klopp’s righteous confession
Both matches were in the Premier League on this occasion, however, Liverpool’s match at Burnley just 64 hours after finishing their match against Leicester.
And a match at Turf Moor in appalling weather inevitably presents a greater challenge than any home match. The order in which the games were played favored the Reds.
Although Klopp intended to sack Diogo Jota against Burnley, the Portuguese striker’s dead leg meant Sadio Mane made his first appearance since winning the Africa Cup of Nations in the starting XI.
The result is liverpool lining up their oldest team for a Premier League match this season, at the age of 29.
All of this delights in a must-have for such a checkered fit and it’s easy to understand why Klopp retained new signing Luis Diaz this time around.
Weather conditions also forced Liverpool to change their approach. He would have struggled to be more different than what they played against the Foxes on Thursday night.
Data from Opta’s The Analyst site on how teams play. They look at the average number of passes based on the possession series, and Liverpool have noticed a change from 4. 44 in 2020/21 to 4. 07 this campaign.
This means that now they are also playing a little faster. Opta measures the team’s direct velocity, which they describe as a measure of how temporarily a team advances the ball upward, in meters consistent with the second.
The Reds’ tally has risen from 1. 39 last season to 1. 54 this season, but the difference between the games opposed to Foxes and Clarets is more interesting.
Liverpool had a similar ownership point in both games – 63% and 67% respectively – and the number of sequences with at least 10 passes also only another of two (18 and 20).
A closer look at Opta’s style of play, however, some key differences.
This wasn’t so much the case in the series’ pass data, as his numbers against Leicester (3. 84) and Burnley (4. 3) were his 14th and 8th in his 24 league games. Pretty close to average, in other words.
But Liverpool’s direct play speed couldn’t be more different between the two games.
In the 2-0 win at Anfield, it was the lowest (and therefore slowest) he has had in 2021/22, so far.
The Reds’ direct speed in their first 22 games ranged from 1. 03 against Tottenham to 1. 94 against Chelsea. Obviously, it has fluctuated a lot in the past two months.
Against Leicester, just 0. 86 went up to 2. 0 in the match at Turf Moor. While other teams might have had games with similar numbers, they are out of reach of the average of any other Premier League team.
Get all the latest Liverpool news, team news, movement rumours, injury updates and the investigation of the next step for the Reds.
You’ll also get the latest discussions and movement analysis right in your inbox every day with our FREE email newsletter.
Register here, it will take you a few seconds!
Also, keep in mind that there is an apparent correlation between serial passes and direct speed. Teams that move the ball forward temporarily don’t tend to have long ownership passes.
Still, that’s precisely what Liverpool did against Burnley. Just five times in the league and in Europe, he has attempted more long passes this season, and in 4 of those games he has also attempted at least 60 additional passes in total.
It is a sensible tactical replacement given the opponent’s taste and the climate in which the adjustment took place. It is not suitable for fantasy football and, in fact, it is a rare case where Liverpool had more shots in stopped shots than in open play.
But just because this is a logical replacement in the opposite-leicester adjustment strategy doesn’t mean Liverpool’s win in any of the games has been taken for granted. They deserve credit for overcoming demanding situations by fine-tuning their style.
It remains to be seen what adjustments Klopp will use in the Reds’ next big game, against Inter Milan.