Jurgen Klopp has discussed his reasons for changing Liverpool’s formation, with the Reds having moved to a 4-4-2 shape in recent weeks.
Liverpool have shown signs of improvement after a run of three consecutive wins in all competitions, having beaten West Ham in midweek after last weekend’s 1-0 win over Manchester City at Anfield.
Klopp has tweaked his team for recent fixtures, moving away from a midfield three to a system with two forwards through the centre. Darwin Nunez and Roberto Firmino started in central areas against the Hammers and the German has opened up on the reasons for his tactical change.
“Stability, closing gaps we left open the weeks before – not on purpose, it just happened, we played for quite a time a specific system a specific way,” Klopp told his pre-match press conference ahead of the Reds’ trip to face Nottingham Forest.
“When you get used to things you lose a little bit the desire for the detail. And because it was so well-tuned, let me say it like this, how we defended, how we pressed or how we did different things, little things can change a lot.
“That’s why we had to change a big thing and to start thinking new about it as a group, and not telling him and telling him, ‘You do differently’. Because it’s always a row of different things that happened then.
“That’s why we had to do it slightly differently. It’s actually not a big difference. It’s a change of responsibility slightly, it gave us so far more stability in different moments.
“Will we always play like this? In the last game now, to get stability again we changed to a 4-5-1 in the last few minutes, so that’s possible still. It all depends to who is available, who is fit.
“When we started the 4-4-2 we had two more strikers available, it feels like long ago but it’s only like 10 days ago that we had two more. So we have to stay open for all different possibilities what we can do and then we make decisions about that. It’s about what is best for us and what is the worst for the opponent. That’s pretty much how you try to set up, that’s what we always did and will do.”
