A weekend like no other in the Premier League, Sunday's Premier League match provided an unreal result.
Liverpool's loss to Aston villa the shock of the weekend.
Liverpool's defence once impenetrable armour appears impregnable. Quite what has happened? The loss to Aston Villa should not be counted as a one-off. With 12 goals conceded in 4 premier league games by contrast in the previous season, it took 13 EPL games to concede that amount of goals.
How could a team who last season only narrowly escaped relegation defeat the premier league champions so comprehensively?
Liverpool known for their high line and press are quite tough to defeat and teams do against them with a very low block due to the fear of being hit on the transition and also recognising an opportunity with balls over the top due to Liverpool's high defensive line.
A look at all Liverpool's matches so far in the EPL, teams have found a chunk in the armour and are exploiting that to devastating effect.
Against the reigning champions, according to Opta stats, teams have focused majority of their attacks down Liverpool's right flank, Leeds (48.8%), Chelsea (39.3%), Arsenal (37.4%), Aston Villa (40.1%). This could be in part due to Arnold's defensive weakness, as well as Joe Gomez, being the other vulnerable part as opposed to Van Dijk.
A look at most goals conceded by Liverpool shows a particularly recurring theme. Teams taking advantage of their Achilles heel.
Leeds first goal also coming from the right flank, Kalvin Phillips pinging a long pass out to Jack Harrison, there's little Arnold could have done in this case, but Gomez whose greatest asset is his speed runs way too fast and is unable to slow down his run in time to halt Harrison, eventually showing him on to his right foot for him to comfortably finish.
At Villa Park, the home team's goal came primarily from that side of the defence.
Villa's first - a badly hit pass in space to Joe Gomez allowing Grealish to pounce and with Watkins finishing off.
Aston Villa's second goal, also Villa's second came from the right side of the defence bearing semblance to the first goal conceded against Leeds on the opening day of the campaign. A threaded pass in space by Grealish to Watkins, Gomez goes too fast and also doesn't get close and strong enough on Watkins, eventually showing him onto Hus stronger foot resulting in the goal.
Watkins hat-trick and Villa's third on the night came from a freekick aimed at the right.
1. Drop deep as teams have traditionally done over the years and you offer Aston Villa's greatest aerial threat (the defenders) a better chance of scoring.
2. Push the wall higher, and with great discipline and focus, you play the opposition attackers offside.
Liverpool went for the latter, which makes perfect sense, but look in the picture above. Gomez is solely focused at the man ahead of him, looking to play him offside but is unaware of Trezeguet running behind him.
A whipped pass out to the open space on the right sets Trezeguet up who has a simple task of passing to Watkins to nod home and complete his hat-trick.
Jürgen Klopp and his backroom staff have a task of finding a lasting solution to the problem in that part of the defence to stand any chance of retaining the league title.
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