Liverpool Need A New Formation

The system is easier to change than the head coach or the players, after all.

The headline of this edition of the newsletter is a little misleading. Sorry about that. What Liverpool need more than anything else is for several key players to rediscover fitness and form.

A Reds side containing Alisson Becker, Ibrahima Konaté, Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister and Mohamed Salah at something far closer to the peak of their powers would be a more welcoming environment in which the likes of Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak could thrive. All the pieces matter, detective.

Converting more than four of their 21 Opta-defined big chances across their five one-goal defeats would’ve made quite an impact too. They’d still only be at par if they had scored twice as many.

As relevant as these factors are, Liverpool have lost the last five matches in which they started with a 4-2-3-1 formation. This bleak run is only lightened by a 5-1 Champions League win in Germany. The Reds began against Eintracht Frankfurt in a 4-4-2 system.

Is permanently switching to that tactic too simplistic a solution to their current woes? Sure. Even if this were the answer, formations aren’t static (unless Roy Hodgson is in charge). Arne Slot denied his Feyenoord team played 4-2-3-1 when the available evidence suggested they regularly did. Formations are just numbers on a page, a shorthand to describe how a team lines up. They only really show the positions for when a side is out of possession.

Feyenoord in 2023/24. Um, Arne?

Tactical frameworks such as these still provide a starting point for analysis. Using Understat data we can see how Liverpool have performed in the league with their different formations across the last 12 seasons. If not the most accurate expected goals model, we will at least be comparing like-for-like.

Sorting the FBRef and Understat xG difference for the 2025/26 Premier League reveals only four teams are further than one place apart in their standings on each table anyway. The scale might be different for the two models but the principle isn’t producing wildly different results.

The league data for this season’s Reds is hugely concerning. It could be argued that the 4-2-3-1 version of the present day team is worse than any other iteration of Liverpool since the days of Luis Súarez ended.