Liverpool's Pressing under Arne Slot and the Mohamed Salah impact

Liverpool's pressing style was inevitably going to evolve once Arne Slot replaced Jürgen Klopp. Here's what happened and a potential benefit for Mohamed Salah

Who do you think are the 11 best players in Europe without the ball? Ryan O’Hanlon recently attempted to answer this question for ESPN, selecting several Liverpool players in the process.

From back to front, Virgil van Dijk, Dominik Szoboszlai and Mohamed Salah made the cut. Salah? Yeah. If, like me, you assumed the article would be looking at the defensive efforts players put in, you’d be wrong. Instead, the study looks at receiving high value passes, finding space, that sort of thing.

Even so, this feels like a good time to assess the Reds’ pressing data for 2024/25. Arne Slot has banked just over half a season of Premier League statistics, having faced the task of replacing a man who famously declared that “no playmaker in the world can be as good as a good counter-pressing situation.”

We don’t need advanced data to prove Liverpool no longer press as high up the field as they once did. Per Fotmob, Slot’s side have averaged 5.0 final third possession regains per 90 minutes in his rookie year, down from 6.1 in the final campaign under Jürgen Klopp. It was last lower in 2018/19.

Opposition teams are averaging 44.2 touches in their defensive third for each time Liverpool recover the ball there, when they only got 35.8 last season. Again, there has been a drop off even though 2023/24 wasn’t peak pressing for Klopp’s Reds by this measure.

Yet the detailed Statsbomb numbers on Fantasy Football Scout tell a slightly different tale, at least in terms of overall pressing. The evolution in intensity from player to player is worth a closer look too. It shows why looking at one man in isolation can be misleading

Liverpool have averaged 177.7 pressures per match in the league this season, an increase of - wait for it - 0.3 from last term. However, their possession average has dropped by almost four per cent year-on-year, giving them more opportunity to regain the ball. If we amend the figures to account for this, then the Reds have effectively gone from 229 pressures per game last season to 209 in this. The drop in counter pressing is wider than it appears from the raw figures once possession-adjusted too.

One positive for Slot is that Liverpool are regaining possession within five seconds of applying pressure just as well as they did in 2023/24. It was vital that Klopp’s great work in this field did not unravel or go to waste thanks to the handover. This hasn’t been the case.

While there hasn’t been a change of manager at the Etihad, Manchester City have suffered a pressing slump. They were top of the class last season, succeeding with 20.9 per cent of their pressures, but are now below half way in the standings on 18.4. Pundits frequently talk about the problems that come from a team being ‘one or two per cent off it’, with City’s pressing this season proving the point. At present, only Chelsea are above the Reds for 2024/25, albeit most clubs are closely grouped.

One player who contributes relatively little to the Liverpool press is Salah, with his rate of 13.6 pressures per 90 the lowest of any midfielder or forward at the club. The trade-off is that he is delivering 1.26 non-penalty goals and assists per 90 instead.

This is essentially the same output as in Salah’s first season with the club (1.27), a campaign in which he averaged 14.1 pressures every 90 minutes. The Egyptian pressed harder in the next three seasons before dropping down to 14.6 in 2021/22.

The result? That campaign was the one other year in which he has delivered more than 0.82 goals and assists (excluding penalties) in the Premier League (1.01). Coincidence or not, Salah’s most productive seasons align with when his pressing has been less intense.

Despite making fewer pressures, the 32-year-old is succeeding with them more frequently this term. However, it’s important to note the definition of pressure regains: “player’s team won the ball back within five seconds.” It isn’t on the person applying the press to recover possession for it to be deemed successful.

Dominik Szoboszlai is logging fewer pressure regains per 90 this season, which could be a result of helping Salah succeed more often with his. It feels a plausible explanation, perhaps the best available answer without access to the full data set or videos of every example.

What appears evident in the data is that the front of the team is pressing more effectively as a unit. Of the five forwards who were at the club last season, only Diogo Jota has seen his pressure regain rate per 90 drop. He still ranks third among the quintet even after that.

Their collective pressuring of opponents is leading to an additional 4.9 regains per 90 minutes. When trying to think of an example of them working well as a trio, the move which led to a penalty in the 2-0 win over City was the first which came to mind. There will be others.

The way in which the forwards go about their pressing, in terms of who does so most frequently, has changed. Luis Díaz, Darwin Núñez (both +10.2) and Jota (+8.7) have all seen a marked rise in pressures, whereas Salah (-2.6) and Cody Gakpo (-8.2) have decreased.

Lucho’s positional change throughout the season blurs his statistics, but the general trend appears to be that the central forwards pressure more often, picking up any slack from those on the wings who aren’t as involved. As with Salah, this change may be helping Gakpo to have his most productive campaign for goals and assists in a red shirt.

The roles in the Reds’ midfield have shifted this season, making the figures for Szoboszlai and Curtis Jones worthy of closer inspection. They have gone from being separated by just 0.7 pressures per 90 in 2023/24 to being 6.6 apart this season, with the Hungarian delivering an additional 1.5 while his Liverpudlian colleague has decreased by 5.1.

Jones has played the same position as Szoboszlai, aside from making three league starts alongside Ryan Gravenberch in the midfield two. The intensity of press which Slot desires from his number 10 in a given fixture may determine which of the two players gets the nod to start it.

At the back, three of the first choice back four are essentially pressing at the same rate they were in Klopp’s swansong season. The exception is Trent Alexander-Arnold, who is putting in an extra 5.1 per 90 this term. As he is playing the role of a conventional defender more often, this seems reasonable enough. The right-back is pressing at a rate not seen from him since 2017/18.

This is the case for Salah too, except he’s dropped to that level rather than ascended to it. He has also risen to the challenge of delivering a goal or assist every match on average. The tweak to the pressing process is working out well for player, manager and Liverpool alike.