Liverpool, Brighton and the Third-Man Run Problem

Liverpool’s press thrived when Brighton stuck to building from the back, but familiar issues still showed up in midfield balance. The third-man run remains a key problem that opponents can exploit.

It doesn’t take a genius to understand why Liverpool had so much joy against Brighton, and it wasn’t due to Brighton playing below par or their game plan. It was actually their lack of deviation from their normal style of play which gave Liverpool the upper hand in that game.

Why Brighton’s build-up suited Liverpool

A lot of times when I have watched the Reds this season, the games have followed a similar approach from the opposition. They look to numb Liverpool’s attack with either a low block or long balls to a third man deep run to bypass the press, and then look to exploit the lack of speed on defending a counter or play the ball into an area behind the defence where it doesn’t fall under the goalkeeper’s or defender’s responsibility to clear.

For the first time this season, a “lesser” team was actually looking to utilise their own style of play against Liverpool where they tried to build up from the back instead of exploiting the lack of speed. This played into Liverpool’s hands as the longer Brighton continued to build up from the back, the more precise Liverpool’s press became.

The balance still looks off

Now one thing I took away from that game, which was not mentioned by my colleagues or other professionals within the sport, was how the balance of Liverpool’s team still looked off. The third man deep run is still an issue for Liverpool. The two times Brighton were forced to play a long ball into the deep runner from midfield, they were able to push their team up the pitch and then look to set pressing traps against Liverpool.

Chelsea followed a similar pattern on the weekend where the third man run was made from defence to midfield instead of midfield to attack. This allowed Chelsea to split the Liverpool midfield and make it seem like there was huge gap between the Liverpool defence and centre circle.

Why the third-man run keeps hurting Liverpool

We all know the third man run is one of the most dangerous runs in football because it exposes a team’s lack of mobility in defending those powerful runs. It also pegs a team back into their defending half, Jordan Henderson prime example.

Now this is what I took from the game against Brighton and mentioned to my boss as an improvement: a third man run can be stopped with man to man…