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Beth Lindop
Multiple Authors
If you can’t beat them, join them. Liverpool were slow to get on board with the Premier League‘s set-piece revolution, but their willingness to embrace the game’s increasingly agricultural approach has been instrumental in their recent rival, including in Saturday’s 5-2 victory over West Ham United at Anfield.
When Alexis Mac Allister drilled home the hosts’ third goal of the afternoon in front of the Kop, he ensured Liverpool became just the second team in Premier League history to score three goals from corners in the first half of a match, after Manchester United against Leicester City in September 2016. It is the kind of statistic that would have seemed preposterous in the early months of the campaign, when the Reds’ lack of proficiency at both scoring and defending set pieces negatively impacted their fortunes on an almost weekly basis.
Liverpool’s woes in that department were so pronounced that the club opted to part company with set-piece coach Aaron Briggs in December — although manager Arne Slot publicly defended his former colleague when grilled on the matter last week.
“It would be very unfair to Aaron, who was only partly responsible for that, because in the end I’m responsible for everything,” Slot said. “In the end it’s always my responsibility. But we were, in that period of time, so, so, so unlucky.”
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On the evidence of Saturday’s first-half showing, that luck has now started to change. Having been perennial slow starters in the top flight this season, Liverpool raced into an early lead when Ryan Gravenberch recycled possession from a corner and picked out Hugo Ekitike, who finished smartly past Mads Hermansen at the near post.
It was Ekitike’s 11th league goal of the season and his 16th in all competitions, making the France international the first Liverpool player to reach 20 goal contributions this term, with four assists also to his name. West Ham, who had lost just one of their previous six league games ahead of this weekend’s trip to Merseyside, rallied well after the early setback but found themselves on the end of yet more set-piece misery when Virgil van Dijk rose highest to nod Dominik Szoboszlai‘s in-swinging corner into the back if the net.
Liverpool employed the same route to goal again on the stroke of halftime, with Ekitike helping Szoboszlai’s smart delivery into the path of Mac Allister, who finished with aplomb to double his Premier League goal tally for the season.
His strike was Liverpool’s seventh consecutive league goal from a non-penalty set piece — the longest run by any side in the competition’s history. While Slot was right to assert that his team’s drastic uptick in set-piece form should not be pinned on one individual, the contrast in Liverpool’s numbers is stark.
Across their first 20 Premier League matches this season, Liverpool scored just three goals from set pieces — the fewest of any team in the division. Their efficacy from corners on Saturday, however, means they have scored nine set-piece goals in their past eight league games: more than any of their competitors.
“That’s very pleasing because that is the reason we have won,” Slot said in his postmatch news conference. “In my opinion, we have played better when we have lost and conceded from set pieces. But, as I’ve always said, things went back to normal.
“We created quite a lot of chances from set pieces in the first half of the season and almost every set piece we conceded went in, and today you could see exactly the opposite happening. Their first big chance was a set piece that would have gone in, in the first six or seven months, I’m 100% sure. But then it doesn’t and we start scoring from set pieces, things start looking much better and brighter. That’s really pleasing for us, for the team and for the fans as well.”
In a season that has been characterized by late drama, Liverpool deviated from the norm by scoring three goals in the first half of a league game for the first time since the day they clinched the title against Tottenham Hotspur last April. Still, the Reds’ unwelcome habit of making life difficult from themselves once again reared its head in the second half, with Tomás Soucek diverting El Hadji Malick Diouf‘s drilled cross past Alisson Becker just four minutes after the restart.
With nothing to lose, West Ham continued to pose plenty of problems for their hosts before Cody Gakpo‘s deflected effort helped to calm some nerves around Anfield. It was only the Netherlands international’s second goal in the league since his strike in the reverse fixture at the London Stadium in late November, and his impassioned celebration suggested it was a welcome relief to find himself back on the scoresheet.
A late header from Valentín Castellanos and an even later own-goal from Axel Disasi only heightened the erratic nature of Liverpool’s second-half display, and Slot will know more control and composure is required from his team if they are to finish the season in a stronger fashion than they started it.
Nevertheless, Liverpool have now won seven of their past nine games in all competitions and are up to fifth in the Premier League, just three points behind third-placed Aston Villa. They irrefutably remain an imperfect side, and even in securing their joint-biggest top-flight win of the season, they showed there is still plenty of scope for improvement.
But having been late to the set-piece party, Liverpool now look determined to make up for lost time. It might just be the secret weapon they need to make this campaign a successful one.
