Liverpool lost the Carabao Cup final at the hands of Newcastle and a major reason for this was Dan Burn, though possibly more because of how we let him thrive.
The Geordie scored the opening goal after Alexis Mac Allister was given the baffling role of marking the giant defender, something Arne Slot had to explain after the match.
However, what also made the 32-year-old stand out was the fact that it felt every long pass we played forward was towards his head.
Speaking about his tactics during the game our head coach said (via liverpoolfc.com):
“You try to make some changes, you go to a No.9 that is even stronger through the air than Diogo [Jota] maybe is, because you are hoping that he – Darwin [Nunez] in this situation – can make it a bit more difficult for their defenders to win all these long balls we had to play in this first half.
“Because I think Dan Burn won every duel and he played somewhere around 150… I don’t know but he played a lot.”
It seems a little strange to see how much we struggled by playing direct balls forward and then decided to bring Darwin Nunez onto the pitch, to continue playing this way.
Newcastle would have loved how direct Liverpool played
The 6′ 6″ monster kept winning everything that was sent in his direction and even noted how our No.10 wasn’t properly marking him for the goal.
It was worrying to see us play into the hands of the Magpies and not try to find an alternative route to goal.
Federico Chiesa’s finish came from some clever build up play and a brilliant pass from Harvey Elliott, highlighting how we could have hurt them more.
It wasn’t to be though and instead, Dan Burn won 150 duels and we allowed him the chance to thrive.
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