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Swansea 0 Liverpool 0 | Match & Stats Report

Attacking Creativity

Steven Gerrard was Liverpool’s main creative force while Pablo Hernandez drove Swansea’s attacks. The two players’ performance directly mirrored each other. Both had total 93 touches on the ball. They both created more chances and more passes in the attacking third than any other player.

Hernandez and Gerrard both profited from their relationship with a deeper midfield player. Leon Britton and Joe Allen both acted as pivot points between defense and advanced players. This allowed the two playmakers to maintain advanced roles and drift around the final third to find space.

Just like many other areas of the match, Britton and Allen were nearly perfect mirrors of each other: both had 93% pass completion. The greatest divide between the two players were how they passed. Britton had a near equal split between forward, backward, and lateral passes. For Allen, 38% of his passes were directed forward. This is indicative of Liverpool’s slightly more attacking approach, and that Allen was more heavily concerned with giving the ball to Gerrard and Henderson than spreading the ball out wide. Roughly 37% of his all his completed passes were to Gerrard or Henderson.

Despite similar performances and styles, Liverpool had a sharper edge in attack. Swansea relied on opportunities outside the box, and forced only a couple saves out of Pepe Reina. Tremmel on the other hand was kept far busier. More of Liverpool’s shots were from inside the penalty area. Tremmel had a great performance with a total of 9 saves.

Swansea Defense

While both sides attacked in similar fashions, Swansea were far busier in defense. Their overall display was strong, and this is directly reflected in the match statistics. The Swans produced over double the tackles and interceptions of Liverpool at 26 and 22 respectively.

Specifically, The Swans backline was in flying form. Davies, Chico Flores, Jonathan De Guzman and Angel Rangel all had a 100% success rate for tackles. 17 out of Swansea’s 26 tackles were by these players.

Ben Davies was less of an attacking outlet as Angel Rangel, but his defensive game was impressive. Davies led the game in both tackles and interceptions. He marked the pace of Raheem Sterling well, who had a more subdued performance than in previous games. The increased pressure made Sterling lose possession 8 more times than in his previous match against Wigan. By the end of the match, Davies had won 100% of his 7 tackles and won more aerial duels than any other player.

Conclusion

Laudrup has only tweaked the setup Rodgers implemented at Swansea rather than overhauling it. With both teams playing this system, this game is evidence that Liverpool’s squad is becoming more familiar with a short passing game. Both teams played their tactical game very well, and it was only through greater individual performances that Liverpool gained an edge in attacking. Nevertheless, it was not enough to overcome an exceedingly hard working Swansea defensive line.

 Swansea and Liverpool are now both on long streaks without losing, and it hard to see them being easy to break down in the future. While both have difficult matches against West Brom and Tottenham respectively, there is no reason to suggest either of these disciplined passing teams will be easy to break down.

For a more general tactical comparison between Swansea and Liverpool, you can read Richard Roberts excellent article here.

Michael Thot
Michael Thot
Raised in Seattle WA. Sounders FC, United States, and Liverpool supporter.
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