Tribalfootball.com's tactics expert Connor Holden runs his eye over Liverpool's successful night at Carabao Cup semifinal opponents Fulham and says Reds boss Jurgen Klopp created the ideal system for Harvey Elliott to thrive. He also laments Fulham manager Marco Silva failing to take advantage of the visitors' lack of experience at the back...

In the second Carabao Cup semi final, Fulham took on Liverpool, needing to overturn a 2-1 deficit sustained at Anfield in the reverse fixture.

Despite going down early in this game, making it 1-0 to Liverpool, and 3-1 to the Reds on aggregate, Fulham managed to get a goal in the second half, making the end of the game a bit nervy for Liverpool, defending their 3-2 lead.

Liverpool prevailed in the end, but what stood out tactically about Jurgen Klopp's side? And what made that midfield tick?

LIVERPOOL'S DOUBLE EIGHTS

Liverpool lined up in a 4-3-3, with Alexis Mac Allister sitting slightly deeper in midfield, whilst Ryan Gravenberch and Harvey Elliot were either side of him.

But something that was clear in this game against Fulham was the freedom that both eights had, to pick up different positions and create overloads on the ball side.

What this often meant was one of the number eights would drift over towards the side the ball was on, so that both of them were occupying the same side, and creating mini overloads in half spaces.

This gave Liverpool ball side overloads against Fulham, creating mini 5v2/5v3 passages where they could move the ball through the lines with quick movement and one/two passing.

The way Klopp used his midfield in this game was a very relationist approach, where the players had the freedom to make movements into zones that they thought would benefit the team, connecting with their teammates and being very fluid.

In recent weeks, Klopp's midfield has been a bit more rigid positionally, especially before Mohamed Salah left for AFCON, as everyone was suited to their roles and occupied their own zones.

But the usage of Harvey Elliot brings a completely different dynamic to Liverpool, a player who is brilliant at drifting between the lines, playing on the half turn and creating from within the half spaces.

RELATIONIST APPROACH

Another aspect of the relationism in Klopp's midfield movement was the usage of “escadinhas", forming diagonal lines between three players to form passing sequences and movement.

Again this was mainly triggered by Elliot's movement, his ability to put himself between the other midfielder and the forward, and make quick decisions on the half turn.

Forming these sequences gives Fulham a lot of questions to answer, who to follow when the overload is created, and how to defend against it.

When Elliot receives the ball between the midfielder and forward, he has a variety of options as he can return the ball backwards to relocate, he can turn and drive the ball into space, he can combine in short passing movements with the forward, or he can play the ball in behind the Fulham defence, and his decisions can be based on how the opposition decide to defend against it.

The fact that one of Elliot's main strengths is his quick decision making, and footballing IQ means this role and relationist of play gets the best out of him, as he can create chances on the fly, and do what he thinks best suits the attacking sequence.

FULHAM TAKE IT CLOSE

Once Fulham found their goal in the second half, making it 2-1 on aggregate, the crowd gave them a new lease of life, and spurred them on to attack Liverpool for the remaining minutes of the game.

Fulham prodded, but Klopp reinforced his defence by going five at the back, making it more compact in the box when Fulham looked to get the ball into Raul Jimenez who was lurking in the box, and this was enough to see them through.

I believe Fulham could have benefited by trying to overload the Liverpool right hand side, and test the younger breakthrough talents such as Conor Bradley and Jarell Quansah.

As good as they have been, they are both making their first set of senior appearances for the club this season, and I believe it could have been worth overloading that side of the pitch towards the end of the game, in order to test those players and isolate them 1v1 as much as possible.

CONCLUSION

To conclude this game, Liverpool deserved the victory, they kept Fulham quiet in the first half and could have scored another goal in this game to tie it up.

Of course this second leg being an away game for the Reds, it always had the risk of the crowd getting involved if Fulham scored, and making it uncomfortable as they had a chance to get back in the game.

But Klopp made his defensive substitutions, went to five at the back, and that was enough to see the game out for the Reds.