Who’d have thought that playing no full backs against the sharpest front three in the world wouldn’t have worked?
Roma weren’t to know anyway, that’s for sure.
Look, they went for it. They decided that the best form of containing Mané, Firmino and Salah was to play three centre backs and have no-one really covering the channels and, hey, if it wasn’t for five goals, it might’ve actually come off.
But now they know. You might ask why the f**k they needed hindsight to know they should have at least a player – any player – occupying some of the space Mo Salah might want to use but you would say that. With hindsight, see.
Had the Roma manager ever seen Liverpool play? https://t.co/mZEDJkcfQG
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) April 26, 2018
They came to Anfield buoyed by the historic 3-0 win over Barcelona when they switched formation and went with a 3-5-2. They tampered with it slightly for Liverpool to allow more bodies in the engine room but, again, nobody thought about having more than three bodies in defence – or any bodies at full back. Where Salah is.
Anyway, Saturday’s 4-1 Serie A win over ChievoVerona saw Eusebio Di Francesco revert to a 4-3-3 and they’ll have to stick with that for the Champions League semi-final second leg too.
Juan Jesus saw red in that game but his head would’ve been on the chopping block anyway.
Roma likely line-up
It means Dzeko will be back on his own up top and Kolarov will be sat in a more orthodox full back role but it’s nothing neither aren’t used to. Florenzi has done a solid job converted from midfield this season whilst Patrik Schick – who scored at the weekend and played wider than he’s used to – might fancy his chances of nicking Under’s spot in that front three.
Liverpool’s front six basically picks itself because Lallana, Can and Oxlade-Chamberlain are injured and, you know, Danny Ings.
Liverpool likely line-up
