Newcastle vs Liverpool: Strength in numbers key to deciding ebb and flow of Jurgen Klopp’s ‘gegenpressing’ game

EXCLUSIVE COLUMN: If Liverpool can win the ball in the opponents’ third, they go for it. If not, they retreat

Jurgen Klopp has overseen a dramatic improvement in Liverpool's form this season (Getty Images)

I certainly didn’t think I would find as many people wanting to talk to me about “gegenpressing” when the season began! We knew that Jürgen Klopp and his ways might be destined for the Premier League at that stage but not so soon and I’m not sure that any of us thought the impact a new manager can make would be as instant and dramatic as his at Liverpool.

Time to have a look in detail at his much discussed new system then – and before we get into the small detail, to make an important point about the philosophy, one I think has been overlooked amid the fascination with the pressing. It is that the idea of the continual high press is a myth. Liverpool press very selectively and do not push up tight against opposition players all over the field in search of the ball. Imagine how it would feel if someone told you to go on to a football field today and to press, press, press, wherever the opposition happened to be. It’s exhausting just to think about it. Even a well-prepared elite Premier League player would be unable to last more than 60 minutes at that lick. Klopp’s team’s pressing is far more pragmatic, realistic – reserved for two specific areas of the field – and the rewards have been rapid because of it.

Those areas are the opponents’ defensive third and Liverpool’s own defensive third. If Liverpool believe they can win the ball in the opponents’ defensive third, they will go for it. If not, they will leave the no man’s land in central midfield, retreat straight back into their own defensive third and attempt to dispossess the opposition and win it back there.

It is all about numbers, having more players than the opponent when they’re pressing. In the opponents’ defensive third, the classic situation these days is that the full-back will fan out to the flanks when the keeper is preparing to roll the ball out – out of the way, from the Liverpool perspective. That leaves just the keeper, two central defenders and a defensive midfielder to bring the ball out. The keeper’s release of the ball is the trigger for Liverpool to go hunting for it, with two of their central midfielders and the three forwards they use in Klopp’s 4-3-3 joining forces to do so. That’s 5 v 4 in their favour and by outnumbering you, they think they can dispossess you. Sometimes the model is slightly different. At Manchester City, they managed to isolate one of the full-backs who had fanned out, Bacary Sagna, and nick the ball out of his possession, through Roberto Firmino.

But the minute that the opposition manage to play the ball through that pressing line, Liverpool will retreat to their own third. They are conceding the middle third of the pitch and saying, “You can have that area.” That’s because they are unable to outnumber the opposition there. But by having nine men behind the ball in their own third, they again possess the greater numbers. Having gone to work unsuccessfully, they will retreat, rest and then, when the ball reaches their third, go to work again. As well as preserving energy, the extra benefit of that system is that it’s harder to play the ball around Liverpool.

Looking at the way they leap in and out of action, it is clearly a very well-drilled system and I would love to take part in one of the training sessions through which Klopp has developed it. I can imagine him marking out the pitch in thirds with cones, allowing the players to know exactly when to begin and relax their press.

By making the press more selective, it has been possible to convert a lot of players from the less intensive football that Brendan Rodgers delivered. Lucas Leiva has been brilliant in the new system, with the kind of tenacity that you would expect. But we’ve also seen players such as Adam Lallana putting in great pressing shifts. Someone compared his game to Dirk Kuyt’s after the win at Manchester City, which was a good way of putting it. When everyone was talking about the players having to press and chase at 100mph throughout the 90 minutes under Klopp, you wondered what the future held for people like Lallana. But that’s the way football is. Systems get adapted.

So what can Newcastle do to deal with this at St James’ Park tomorrow? Look at the weather forecast perhaps and see if they can get the game cancelled! Seriously, Newcastle worry me because their recruitment over the past four seasons reveals a total lack of appreciation in Premier League experience. Only one of the 24 players they have signed permanently in that time came with Premier League experience: Jack Colback.

That’s an astonishing statistic, I think, and what it translates into is a mentality ill equipped for this division. This season they’ve conceded five goals in 13 minutes at City, two in four against Chelsea and two in three against Crystal Palace. There is an utter lack of leaders on the pitch. It won’t make it easier for Steve McClaren that Sunderland look good to escape the mess they are in because in Sam Allardyce they have a manager who knows what the survival fight is like. McClaren has never had to fight for survival like Allardyce.

The body language of Klopp’s players after Liverpool’s win at City told you everything about the better place they are suddenly in. All those lads looked like they’d put in a major shift but they weren’t on their knees because of it. Press when the time is right: that’s the motto. It’s certainly bearing fruit.

Van Gaal’s tactical planning outflanked by cunning Foxes

A goal on the counter-attack for Leicester City against Manchester United last weekend: like we said beforehand, they certainly stick to the plan. But it surprised me that United’s manager, Louis van Gaal, played only three at the back against a side who are transparently fast and dangerous in the advanced wide areas. For all his tactical planning, sometimes Van Gaal and his ideas just don’t make much sense.