Land of the giants Liverpool starting XI that could be Arne Slot's set-piece solution

Liverpool didn’t need the fine margins to go in their favour last season on their way to the Premier League title with Arne Slot probably amazed at how easy it was.

That it was won with Darwin Nunez making 30 appearances and scoring only five goals suggests that £78m signing Hugo Ekitike won’t need to do much to help fire his team to another league success. Having only signed Federico Chiesa last summer, a lot of Slot’s work will have been done on the training ground. Despite this, the champions were still one of the worst – in the bottom five – for their efficiency from set plays, an area where teams like Arsenal have shown how cheap points can be won with a good plan.

Are Liverpool addressing set-piece issues with recruitment plan?

The delivery of Trent Alexander-Arnold will be a miss, however, record signing Florian Wirtz is as good a replacement as can be found. There isn’t a shortage of attacking options either, be it on the ground or in the air for Wirtz and the other dead ball specialists to find and it is an area of play that Slot seems to be trying to address.

At one point, Slot had Ryan Gravenberch (6ft 3inches tall), Hugo Ekitike (6ft 4), Dominik Szoboszlai (6ft 3), Cody Gakpo (6ft 4), Ibrahima Konate (6ft 4) and Virgil van Dijk (6ft 4) all on the pitch which is enough to give any opposition teams something to think about at set plays. Throw in the possibility of signing Alexander Isak at 6ft 4 too and Liverpool should be an entirely different proposition at corners and free-kicks this season, if the coaches and analysts do their homework.

What has Liverpool boss Arne Slot said about set-pieces in the past?

Speaking in April, Slot confirmed that he is aware of the problem and a change of personnel is a step in the right direction, however, there is a long way still to go: “Today it was not a big chance that we scored, it was again a set-piece, in another big moment for us to score in a set-piece with us putting so much effort into it for nine or 10 months now,” he told reporters.

“It feels really good in the moment we need it most – although we needed it against Paris Saint-Germain as well when Jarell headed it on the post. Now two big moments for us to score from a set-piece. The work we’ve put in is that we’ve trained a lot, we have a lot of meetings about it, every single time we try to improve the details,” he continued.

“And I think it’s normal for a coaching staff that’s only nine or 10 months with that team that it doesn’t come from the first week. I always say, if I’m analysing an opponent, if they have their set-pieces perfect, all their throw-ins, all these kinds of things, I know their manager is already there for a long time. Because normally you start with bringing the ball out from the back, how to defend, then the end of that process is set-pieces. I think Arsenal is a great example of that, where Mikel has worked so long and they’re so good in all different phases of the game, and now they’ve become world class in set-pieces.”