West Ham United 1-4 Liverpool: 5 Talking Points

#1 Klopp's tactical switch pays off

A tactical switch paid huge dividends

Despite a good run in Europe, Liverpool have struggled domestically. But the West Ham game reflected that Jurgen Klopp is working out different methods to bring out the best from this Liverpool side. There were surprises to this Reds team right from its lineup.

Georginio Wijnaldum and Sadio Mane made a surprising come back into the playing eleven with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain getting his first league start in midfield.

The initial assessment was that Liverpool will lineup in a traditional 4-3-3 formation with Emre Can sitting deep in Jordan Henderson's absence. But in reality, it was a mixture of 4-4-2 and 4-2-4 which was displayed by the Reds.

The back four and Emre Can sat deep whereas the front three along with Wijnaldum and Chamberlain interchanged positions at will and were performing in a free-roaming role.

Bilic's ploy to man-mark Mane and Salah failed straightaway as the interchangeability made them impossible to mark. This fluidity produced a different looking Liverpool side where the fullbacks stayed deeper than usual to help out a low on confidence defence whereas the front five rotated to wreck havoc.

This strategy will work best against teams that sit deep as the free roaming role to the attackers gives the opposition far less time to think and make a decision.