There are now just three fixtures remaining in the race for the Premier League title, with Liverpool still reliant on at least one opposing team taking points from Manchester City in order for them to stand a chance of being crowned champions.
Incredibly, Pep Guardiola's side have now won 11 league matches in a row, without even going behind once. The Reds will have held some hope ahead of City's previous two matches, as they faced Tottenham and Manchester United, but the current holders managed to secure two results without conceding.
However, although neither United nor Spurs managed to score, they posed City significant problems in a tactical sense.
If City's next opponents are going to do the Reds a favour, they should consider adopting a roughly similar approach.
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Sean Dyche is the man in question, as the boyhood Liverpool fan is tasked with devising a plan to stop City this weekend, as well as offering a threat in an attacking sense. The way in which Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Mauricio Pochettino set up their teams to face City recently, though, offers an insight into how the Burnley manager could alter things to remain competitive.
This season, Burnley have largely employed a 4-4-2 formation, and this was used recently away to Chelsea, away to Liverpool and at home to Spurs.
This suggests that regardless of the quality of the opponent, Dyche seems to favour a 4-4-2.
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Earlier in the season, Burnley set up in a 4-4-1-1 to face City at the Etihad, which was virtually identical to their usual 4-4-2, and Dyche's team lost 5-0. Burnley failed to have a single shot on target on the day, compared to City who managed ten.
This is a common theme when teams face Guardiola's team without employing a back five, because the generic system that the Spaniard has created is ideally suited to causing a back four problems.
An example is pictured below, in which City's offensive five outnumbered Burnley's back four during a previous meeting.
This results in constant channels opening up, as the defenders in the back four strive to close down City's attackers, but have to vacate their positions to do so, shown below.
Solskjaer and Pochettino appeared to nullify this issue by employing back five formations, as those tend to permit City's attackers to be closed down without key spaces opening up, shown below.
Then, ahead of that back five, both Solskjaer and Pochettino deployed three central midfielders, and two centre forwards. Crucially, though, those two most advanced players have to be mobile, fast and aggressive, in the mould of Son Heung-Min, Lucas Moura, Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard.
None of those players managed to notch, but the chances created offered enough, and they hit a combined seven shots, excluding the complete miss by Lingard, pictured below.
Ultimately, the approach allows solid defensive coverage, as well as two immediate threats to counter-attack through providing they can be found quickly by a midfield passer such as Christian Eriksen or Paul Pogba, pictured below.
In recent months, Dyche has favoured a strike-partnership of Ashley Barnes and Chris Wood, and although neither are particularly fast, they have caused significant problems to opposing defences.
If these two players can be fed quickly whenever Burnley regain the ball, then City's defenders may have a busy day.
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In a defensive sense, Dyche doesn't appear sold on using a back five, as he's apparently done so for just 8% of Burnley's minutes so far this season. However, Liverpool supporters can perhaps seek hope in how he deploys his wide midfielders.
Dwight McNeil and Jeff Hendrick are the two players that consistently occupy wide midfield roles, but once Burnley firmly retreat into their defensive shape, those players tend to operate effectively as wing-backs, shown below.
This isn't as beneficial as deploying a strict back five, but it does offer an occasional solution to being outnumbered by City's attackers.
Overall, it remains to be seen how Dyche will approach the contest, but from a Liverpool perspective, hope can be gathered from the two strikers that will likely be deployed, and the prospect of a back five being used, at least to some extent.
