How Liverpool fixed duel difficulties at Ipswich (and what it told us about Arne Slot)

As Arne Slot conducted his various post-match interviews following Liverpool’s opening-day victory over Ipswich Town, there was one recurring theme: duels.

The head coach believed it was the key reason why his team struggled so much in the first half against energetic and aggressive opponents riding high on a return to the Premier League.

“I have to give credit to Ipswich as well because I think they were aggressive, they were not afraid, they were playing one-v-one all over the pitch to defend us,” Slot said.

“Then it is about winning your duels and winning your second balls. I think they won more than us and that’s why it was absolutely an equal game in the first half.”

Slot’s assessment was right. After 45 minutes, Liverpool had been involved in 53 duels, winning only 22 of them, a success percentage of 41.5.

As Slot noted in his answer above, Ipswich’s man-to-man system caused problems. Kieran McKenna’s side were disruptive as they varied their press and pushed their wingers onto Liverpool’s full-backs. Their approach seemed to be aimed at creating duels all over the pitch.

It helps explain why Liverpool committed 13 fouls in the first half, the most in an opening 45 minutes since February 2009 against Chelsea. It underlined how they were second best.

Key to their problems was their struggle to build out from the back and being forced to go long more often than they would have wanted. Without a real No 9 to aim for, the out ball was often Mohamed Salah, but he repeatedly lost out, winning one of his four duels in the first half.

That wasn’t solely his fault when we look at the passes being aimed at him.

This pass from Jarell Quansah was a tough height to control and there was little support around him…

… while Van Dijk’s looped pass in his direction gave him even less chance of maintaining possession.

“That’s what I said to them at half-time: ‘If you want to win here, then you need to go a step up in terms of winning your duels first and make a fight out of it, instead of accepting that every time we play a ball long that the ball ends up in our 16 again,’” Slot said.

Liverpool were right to target the match-up of Salah against Leif Davis, as the second half proved. However, in the first half, even when in good positions and not during the first build-up phase, their passing execution was poor and they failed to release the Egyptian in behind on several occasions.

Behind Liverpool’s front three, the midfield trio of Ryan Gravenberch, Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister struggled too. They won a combined six of their 18 first-half duels and struggled to influence the game.

GO DEEPER

How Slot’s tweaks and Liverpool’s diagonal passes unlocked Ipswich

A Slot midfielder is very different to a Jurgen Klopp midfielder. The former’s preference is for them to be technically gifted controllers, while the latter wanted facilitators who were more vital out of possession than in it. Despite the different profiles, both want the same thing: aggression and intensity, which leads to winning duels and dominating.

Of Liverpool’s 10 outfield players, only Virgil van Dijk (100 per cent) and Trent Alexander-Arnold (66.7 per cent) had a higher duel win percentage than Quansah (40 per cent) at half-time, and they were involved in fewer contests — two and three respectively — than Quansah’s eight, the second highest of the team.

Ipswich mixed their build-up and were prepared to go long quickly and hit their forwards. The two main targets were Liam Delap and Wes Burns. The latter gave Andy Robertson some problems in the first half. The Liverpool left-back is not the tallest, or strongest aerially, and Ipswich targeted that.

Here, Burns eases Robertson away from the ball, allowing it to drop. He then earned a free kick — which led to Jacob Greaves’ header — when the Scotland international nudged him in the back.

It had been a problem from the opening minutes. Robertson didn’t challenge for this aerial duel…

… and lost another.

In real-time, it felt like Robertson was struggling more than anyone else. Quansah’s performance had contained good defensive moments and safety on the ball. So his substitution was a slight surprise and the initial assumption was he had picked up an injury.

Delap was Liverpool’s other main issue. He drifted to the left frequently, creating a battle with Quansah. The centre-back won the first real exchange after 12 minutes, emerging victorious from an aerial duel and then dispossessing the striker moments later.

The following minute was less impressive for Quansah as he allowed Delap to bring down a long ball forward largely unchallenged. He recovered to make the challenge but had not been on the front foot initially…

Later on in the half, Delap again was first to a long ball forward and his touch allowed him to get away from the defender. He advanced into the box, with Alexander-Arnold covering to block the attempted cross.

Noticeably, Ibrahima Konate was much more front-footed when he entered play. The centre-back didn’t allow Delap, and later Ali Al-Hamadi, the same space. At no point did he lose a duel that led to Liverpool running towards their own goal. 

Konate stamped his authority on the game the moment he entered, delivering a lofted pass to Alexander-Arnold unchallenged. 

He set a tone that everybody followed. He won his first aerial challenge…

… and was on the front foot to be first to a pass forward from Ipswich.

“From the start, (Konate) won his duels against the No 9 and that also gave us a lot of ball possession and two goals,” Slot said. 

In his 45 minutes, the France international won four of his five duels (80 per cent). Contrast the duel success rate of the first half to the second of the entire team, only Mac Allister (33.3 per cent), Salah (0) and Robertson (0) had a duel success rate below 50 per cent. emphasising that it was a team-wide issue rather than an individual one. 

Liverpool were able to be more forward-thiking in the second period. They gained territory, involved the midfield more and capitalised on a tiring Ipswich side. Sustaining their aggressive man-to-man pressing and direct play on the break was always going to be difficult for the home side to maintain for 90 minutes.

As the graphic below shows, Liverpool’s duel success increased to 54.5 per cent, winning 24 of 44 duels. They were particularly strong in the right channel of their own defensive third, which was where Konate was introduced.

Winning more duels allowed Liverpool to sustain attacks more and pin Ipswich back. The first goal felt inevitable because of the succession of chances they had created leading up to Diogo Jota’s goal.

It became a low-duel game with only 97 in total. Liverpool only had nine league games with fewer last season — and the same number as on the opening day of that campaign.

It correlated with Liverpool’s increased control and Slot’s tactical tweaks. Alexander-Arnold, who provided the pass crucial to the opening goal, was not involved in a duel in the second half, holding his width more as the structure became less compact.

Liverpool ended the game with a 73.1 per cent duel success in their own third. Only twice last season in the Premier League did they have higher: 84.6 per cent in their 4-1 win against Chelsea and 77.3 per cent in the 1-0 victory over Nottingham Forest.

It highlights that it was not a defensive problem, but instead being reactive against a proactive Ipswich in the first half. Konate excels as a dominant defender, so it made sense for Slot to turn to him at half-time.

Quansah was the unfortunate casualty, and it will be a harsh lesson for the young defender. But will also act as a warning to the rest of the squad that if they are losing their individual battle, they may suffer the same fate.

(Top photo: Marc Atkins/Getty Images)