There was something unnerving about playing Liverpool in the months after Arne Slot took over.
But, at first, nobody could work out what. Every time they attacked, they seemed always to have an extra man available and unmarked – a full-back at the back post, a deeper lying midfielder making a late run, a winger that should’ve been marked somehow free.
They were scoring freely: three past Manchester United, three past AC Milan, three past Bournemouth, five past West Ham. In their first 10 games under Slot, they averaged more than two goals a game.
The problem was, everyone was looking in the wrong place to work out how this relatively unknown coach was outsmarting everyone. It wasn’t so much what Liverpool’s players were doing on the ball, analysts realised. The secret lay in what they were doing without it.
Slot distanced himself from comparisons made back home to countryman Johan Cruyff based on the similarities in aggressive, attacking football.
Yet analyse the data relating to off-the-ball metrics – a new frontier in football analysis and a fast-growing field permeating recruitment and tactics – and it is hard not to think Slot has, even in some unconscious way, been influenced by the great Dutch player, coach and philosopher, although not for the reasons first offered.
“It is statistically proven that players actually have the ball for three minutes on average,” Cruyff once said.
“So, the most important thing is: what do you do during those 87 minutes when you do not have the ball? That is what determines whether you’re a good player or not.”
Data provided to The i Paper by Analytics FC, a consultancy firm, shows the fractional shifts under Slot from the Jurgen Klopp era.
High regains – winning the ball in the opponent’s half – are down from 12.6 to 12.5 per 90 minutes. Counter-pressing recoveries – regaining possession within five seconds of losing it – are also down: from 17.7 last season to 16.5 under Slot.
The biggest leap, however, is in dangerous recoveries – turning over possession and creating a chance that leads to a shot within 20 seconds are up, from 4.63 to 5.13.
Statisticians say this points to clever off-the-ball work around pressing opportunities. They are winning the ball back smarter, and all the players know how to assemble rapidly to turn the turnover into a goal-scoring opportunity.
They are still pressing high, just not quite so high. Under Klopp last season they were top for intense pressing; this season they have dropped a shade to third, behind Bournemouth and Brighton.
Slot has dialled down the intensity of the high press a little, but turned up the intensity of the attacks from turnovers.
He hasn’t thrown away everything Klopp built – rather honed it, crafted it, whittled away the sharp edges he didn’t like and smoothed it into his own, unique, style.
Again deriving meaning from the barely perceptible millimetres, the average position of Liverpool’s players engaged in a defensive action – think headers, interceptions, tackles, fouls – is fractionally deeper than under Klopp.
And everything Slot does hinges around the runs his players make without the ball. He isn’t the only coach doing this – Roberto De Zerbi, the former Brighton manager, sees football in NFL-style plays. Slot has shown it isn’t merely an edgy style to eke out marginal gains at a club punching upwards, it can win you the Premier League.
“Deep runs are probably the most important thing in football,” Slot said after the 3-1 win against Leicester City on Boxing Day.
He had just seen Liverpool’s second goal sparked by a late run from Curtis Jones into space in an already congested penalty area. By the time the midfielder scored it, there were five Liverpool players in the penalty area, and another three spread across the top of the box, unmarked.
“Football is a sport that you play with your brain. You have to be in the right place at the right moment, not too early, not too late.” Those last two sentences might have sounded like a quote from Slot, but it wasn’t. It’s another from Cruyff.
Slot plays a brand of swarming, suffocating football. A defining feature of Liverpool this season. They are a leading side for runs in behind the opposition. By comparison, Manchester City and Arsenal are down the bottom end, reflecting the patient, build-up styles of their managers, Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta.
And he has been developing this for years – it is what gave him the reputation as one of the most sought-after coaches in Europe, respected enough for Liverpool to take what seemed like a punt on a manager who had not coached outside of the Dutch leagues.
A particular feature of Slot’s AZ side of 2019-20, for example, was how deep and wide the full-backs started in attacks. As the attack progressed, they would start running, the idea being that the attacking players would gravitate towards the penalty area, and the full-backs would provide width and unmarked additions.
Almost half the team’s crosses that season came from Jonas Svensson and Owen Wijndal – the full-backs. If they were not crossing, they were providing a nuisance at the far post.
Slot staggers his central midfield, providing tiny edges and angles that would otherwise not be open, baiting the opposition press, relying on a highly-technical and pressure-robust players to retrieve the ball, in the centre, often close to their own penalty area, back to the onrushing opponents.
Dominik Szoboszlai particularly flourishes in the system, Slot describing the player as “underestimated” and his work rate as “unbelievable” earlier in the season. “He just keeps on running with the highest intensity and that is so important for a team that wants to compete for something.”
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“Szoboszlai has been a running machine for Liverpool this season,” Trym Sorum, a Norwegian data analyst and coach, tells The i Paper. “He’s able to consistently perform high speed actions, a lot of sprints, all the time, start and stop, accelerations, deceleration.”
What Liverpool have done without the ball has arguably been what’s given them the edge this season as they close in on the title.
How well that transfers to next season, however, is uncertain. This season is ending in a whimper, and perhaps opponents are finally wise to their approach.
But certainly focus is turning towards off-the-ball play – it is shaping recruitment, analysis, how coaches assess players.
While some have called for the end of Mason Mount’s injury-wrecked career at Manchester United, Ruben Amorim has repeatedly stated how much he likes the player, due, in large part, to the intelligence of his running and movement, and his engine.
SkillCorner is a tracking data specialist working with clubs including Bournemouth, Brentford and Aston Villa. They measure than one million data points per game and can record and analyse 10 different types of off-the-ball run.
“You can make an off-the-ball profile as well as on-the-ball profiles,” Trym says. “I want this player to be good at passing, shooting and crossing. We will see more data profiles off the ball – I want them to be able to make this run, this threshold for high speed actions and so on. It really just adds to the complexity of football but it improves the data scouts’ efficiency.”
One of Trym’s Substack posts on the subject was shared and debated in a WhatsApp group full of global scouts recently.
But there are those who are wary of straying too far towards certain types of players, favouring functionality over individual creativity.
“Recruitment is starting to be more seemingly driven by people who can do stuff off the ball tactically and offensively,” says Dean Whitehouse, a recruitment specialist who worked as a coach in Manchester United’s academy for 23 years.
“What would worry me about that is if we went down the route of the only important stuff is off the ball, already people are saying mavericks are starting to go missing, football is becoming like chess, individuality and creativity is disappearing.”
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