The words 'Jose Mourinho' tend to cause a spasm amongst we Liverpool supporters. Oh, there are some happy memories around him, too. But mostly, we think of April 2014. Steven Gerrard's slip soaks up all the memories from that afternoon that cost Liverpool the title. What gets lost is that even after Gerrard "slipped on his arse" as the song goes, the Reds still only needed a draw. But they couldn't find it, thanks to one of the more stubborn defensive displays from a Mourinho Chelsea team. Which is truly saying something. They were basically reduced to Gerrard hero-ball, wild prayers from distance.
Arne Slot's Liverpool turned over a new card on Sunday, turned over a piece of bad Liverpool history into a good one, and Mourinho'd Manchester City at the Etihad to put one hand on the Premier League trophy.
Liverpool didn't require the ball against City. They had only 34 percent of it. They didn't have all that many shots, either, only totaling eight for the match. They simply let City have it, with Slot figuring that with City's injuries (Haaland and Rodri) and season-long insipidness at times, that they couldn't break Liverpool down. They would also be gettable on the counter, given the way teams have just sauntered and sashayed through their midfield. That's how the second Liverpool goal came about.
While Slot has taken some of the heat out of Liverpool's performances, the heat that would occasionally cause the pot to boil over under Jurgen Klopp, that doesn't mean that they don't still try to do a bit of everything, usually in the same match. They still press pretty aggressively (4th in passes per defensive action). They can still counter like no one else (lead the league in counter attacking goals). They still dominate the ball (4th in possession).
Lately though, with all that, Liverpool have looked a little leggy. They let a lead slip against Everton. They almost did against Wolves. They had to scramble against Villa to get a point. With a 4th game in 12 days, Slot decided to remove a couple arrows from the quiver, while showing off a new one. Liverpool didn't require running all over the field and trying to possess, counter, and press to beat City. So they just defended and countered. Do simple, do it better.
Liverpool prove possession isn't everything against Manchester City
Liverpool were set up in basically a 4-2-4-0. Dominik Szoboszlai and Curtis Jones were dual false 9s. The idea was to simply cut off the middle of the pitch, as City tend to set up either in a 2-3 or 3-2 from defense to midfield when they have the ball. There were no gaps either way. As Kevin De Bruyne and Phil Foden had the two least amount of touches for City, pretty clear that it worked. Here's what it looked like in practice:
With the middle cut out, City's only route to goal was down the side. Mostly it was Jeremy Doku dribbling past Trent Alexander-Arnold and then trying to cross. But with Haaland out and no other natural forward on the field, there was no one to make a run to the near post. Doku's wayward crossing didn't help. We've all seen hundreds of City goals with a winger getting to the byline and then cutting it back to an onrushing midfield. Apparently, so have Liverpool:
Now, whether you think Doku was simply putting Alexander-Arnold on a spit and seasoning him with just the right amount of salt, or the plan was for Alexander Arnold to consistently show Doku to the outside and have Ibrahim Konate right behind him cutting off the six-yard box and a midfielder cutting off any pull-back, that's in the eye of the beholder. The hunch is that it was a bit of both. As you can see above, every time Doku had an alley, there were at least two players behind Alexander-Arnold cutting off his options. One of them was always Konate.
It was a marshaling of a match without the ball that would have had Mourinho giggling and swearing to anyone who would listen (no one) that the game has not passed him by. This method probably wouldn't work against a vintage City side, who could weave through the tiniest spaces and contained a De Bruyne who wasn't clinically dead. Haaland might have made more of a ruckus with those crosses that Doku was getting in (though Guardiola's inability to replace Julian Alvarez might loom larger given that players get hurt, and Haaland has an injury record).
Still, these days when the term 'control' gets thrown around, it means doing so with the ball, with possession. Liverpool showed it's more than possible to do so without any of it. They've won games dominated the ball. They've won games going back to their kindergartner-on-pixie-sticks chaos. Their most important win just came in a new fashion.
Anyway way you want it, Liverpool can do it. And probably better than you.