Talking points of Liverpool’s massive victory over Leicester City

Despite missing numerous key players in their squad, the Reds put forward an outstanding performance in a 3-0 win over Brendan Rodgers’ Leicester City on Sunday

In what profiled to be a very exciting clash that could see either side take away three points, Liverpool ran riot on Leicester City at Anfield, moving to the top of the table thanks to their convincing three-goal victory. Jurgen Klopp’s men had the likes of Mo Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold, and Joe Gomez all missing for this fixture, but nonetheless, they still dominated the Foxes in every aspect of the pitch.

Here are some talking points from Liverpool’s massive win, where they collected their first clean sheet at Anfield since July.

No weaknesses present for the Reds

From front to back, this was a magical performance from a team with so many absences in their starting XI. A lot of pundits believed that Leicester could pull out the full three points due to Liverpool’s depleted squad, but it was the exact opposite that occurred.

Curtis Jones and James Milner were especially brilliant on the right flank, who both haven’t seen much playing time this term. Jones was at the forefront of several attacking chances for the Reds and was a crucial piece of the build-up of Liverpool’s second goal when he switched play to Andy Robertson, who whipped in a perfect cross into a cutting Diogo Jota who headed home the second of the night. Milner’s veteran presence was felt on a new-look backline consisting of Fabinho and Joel Matip at center-back, putting in a very respectable shift.

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In the middle of the park when they did run their attack through Georginio Wijnaldum, the Dutchman was sharp and was definitely one of the reasons that Leicester failed to get more going on the counter-attack.

As a whole, Jamie Vardy and co. failed to really put the Reds’ defense under any serious pressure.  But when their duo was called upon, they were up to the test. With Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez out for another month at the very least, Fabinho and Matip will need more solid performances like this in front of their Brazilian shot-stopper, Alisson.

The Foxes were frankly outplayed by this Liverpool squad. Klopp’s men came out firing from the first whistle and never took their foot off the gas pedal, playing a high-tempo and exciting style of football. The passes were sharp and compact and everyone was gelling with each other, despite having different players in the squad. The work rate was absolutely phenomenal and there really should’ve been more than three goals considering the number of chances they had in the final third. Even when Leicester had the ball, Liverpool quickly dispossessed them and gained possession again thanks to their energy and pressure.

The second goal was a perfect example of how great of a performance this was from the current title-holders. A total of 30 passes were made during the build-up, the most by a Reds team since 2006/07 when Opta began to collect data:

It couldn’t have ended in a better way either, with in-form Jota meeting Robertson’s cross prolifically with his head.