Liverpool were once slow to adapt to the death ball revolution in the Premier League, but accepting a more pragmatic playing style made an important contribution to the 5-2 victory over West Ham United at Anfield.
When Alexis Mac Allister scored the third goal in the first half, Liverpool became the second team in Premier League history to score 3 goals from corner kicks in a half, after Manchester United in 2016. This is especially noteworthy because at the beginning of the season, they often encountered difficulties in both scoring and defending from set pieces.
The problem was so serious that The Kop parted ways with dead ball coach Aaron Briggs in December last year. However, head coach Arne Slot spoke out to defend his colleague.
It would be unfair to Aaron, who only bears a part of the responsibility, because in the end I am the one responsible for everything. In that period, we were extremely, extremely unlucky" - Slot said.
On the field, the change was clearly shown. Liverpool opened the score when Ryan Gravenberch took the ball from a corner kick, creating conditions for Hugo Ekitike to finish accurately. West Ham responded but continued to concede from a dead ball when Virgil van Dijk headed in a goal from Dominik Szoboszlai's corner kick. Before halftime, Ekitike assisted Szoboszlai to pass to Mac Allister to increase the score to 3-0.
Mac Allister's goal marked Liverpool's seventh consecutive goal in the league from a non-penalty set-piece situation - the longest streak in Premier League history. If in the first 20 rounds they only scored 3 goals from dead balls, then in the last 8 matches they have brought in 9 goals in this way.
After the match, Slot admitted the change in luck: "That's great because that's why we won. In the first half of the season, we created many chances from set pieces but conceded too easily. Today it's the opposite. Everything has returned to normal.
Their first big opportunity was a set-piece situation that probably became a goal 6 or 7 months ago. But today that didn't happen, and we scored from a dead ball. That's really good news for the whole team and fans.
The second half still showed Liverpool's familiar instability when Tomas Soucek narrowed the score, while Valentin Castellanos and Axel Disasi made the game more dramatic. However, with 7 wins in the last 9 matches and fifth place, only 3 points behind Aston Villa, Liverpool is showing a clear recovery momentum.
Although not perfect, but having turned a dead ball into a weapon, Liverpool seems to have found the key to break through in the remainder of the season.
I never like to concede, but at least this time we had enough troops to retreat. The goal came from a bit of bad luck and Soucek's sensitivity, instead of being counter-attacked when the squad had not yet stabilized like in previous matches" - Slot added.
