In an era when football is criticised for its tactical homogeneity, an interesting debate has arisen around the idea of defending a crossed free kick.

It had become the accepted approach to use a high defensive line, keeping opponents away from the box and leaving space in front of the goalkeeper. But in recent years, particularly in Italy, an alternative has emerged. In Serie A, it’s common for teams to sit deep, often in two separate lines, and then come forward and attack the ball.

Historically, the Dutch approach to football is very different from the Italian one, particularly in terms of defensive lines. Whereas Italian football is renowned for deep defending, Dutch coaches want their sides to push up. Therefore, it’s been surprising to see Liverpool manager Arne Slot asking his side to defend free kicks in what could be termed an ‘Italian’ fashion, although rather than Liverpool being positioned in two lines, they tend to be in a single, very deep line.

All this was relevant throughout Liverpool’s 3-2 win over Newcastle, a game which featured a ball-in-play percentage of just 40.8 per cent according to Opta — the lowest in any Premier League game for 15 years, since a 2010 contest between Tony Pulis’ Stoke City and Sam Allardyce’s Blackburn Rovers, two sides based around long balls and set pieces. This was a stop-start match defined by fouls and free kicks.

As the graphic above shows, Liverpool had a lot of free kicks to defend.

Here’s the first one — they’re positioned around 20 yards deeper than you’d expect, and with the free kick being so central, Kieran Trippier has to try something unusual. He goes short to Sandro Tonali, who sweeps the ball towards the far post, where Joelinton and Dan Burn have run to. Virgil van Dijk, however, gets his head to the ball.

Ten minutes later, Newcastle have a free kick in a near-identical situation. Trippier takes a similar approach, this time with Bruno Guimaraes playing the ball into the box, although his delivery is poor and easily cleared.

From closer range, Trippier tries something different: he tries to loft the ball over the defence. But with Liverpool defending deep, and the free kick again in a central position, this is almost impossible. The ball bounces out of play.

Here’s the fourth attempt. This time, Anthony Gordon is trying something different: loitering behind the Liverpool defence in an offside position. He presumably thinks that with the Liverpool defence so close to goal, he might as well position himself where the defenders can’t track him, and hope to be unmarked in a scrappy situation in the box.

In the end, Trippier launches the ball in his general direction, Gordon can’t challenge for it, and the ball bounces through to Alisson.

So, next time, Trippier tried going short again. This time, Gordon was unmarked and Anthony Elanga sped around the outside, but Gordon’s ball to Elanga was played a little wide and Elanga’s off-balance cross was weak.

Into the second half, it’s the same kind of thing. Liverpool’s defence isn’t even in the picture here. But now, with Newcastle down to 10 men and urgently trying to find an equaliser, they don’t want to go short. Lewis Hall goes long and Van Dijk, coming forward onto the ball, again heads clear. Liverpool are comfortable in these situations.

So what happened to make Liverpool defend this situation in the complete opposite manner, holding a high line and allowing Nick Pope to play the ball in behind? Van Dijk appeared to be retreating as normal, only for him to glance over at the bench and then ask his team-mates to hold a high line.

This changes Liverpool’s task enormously. Ibrahima Konate, having previously become accustomed to coming forward to defend the free kick, now has to run 20 yards backwards and therefore can’t jump properly when challenging Dan Burn in the air.

Burn misses the ball, it comes off Konate and runs through to the onrushing William Osula…

… who prods the ball home to make the score 2-2.

“It’s not fair to blame Virgil,” said Slot after the game. “He has contact with us on the bench. All the other ones were further up the pitch, so we know what Newcastle’s idea is: they hit the ball to the ‘D’, Dan Burn is there attacking the ball and trying to make it difficult.

“There were a lot of difficult situations for us coming from that, or a throw-in, or a corner, so at that moment we decided that because the ball was so deep it was smarter not to get a second ball inside our box again — but it was definitely the wrong decision in that moment, looking back.”

And, sure enough, when Liverpool had to defend a similar situation shortly after that concession, Pope’s long ball didn’t work — Alisson was free to come out and claim it.

In the end, Rio Ngumoha’s late winner meant this didn’t cost Liverpool the win, but on the basis of these situations, it makes sense for Liverpool to take a deeper defensive line in the future.

There are some drawbacks, of course. If the defending side loses the first header, it creates a second ball in a potentially dangerous goalscoring situation. But the more you watch clips of teams defending in that manner, the more it seems like a good approach. Not only does it allow the defending side to come forward and attack the ball, but it also seems to cause confusion for the player taking the free kick because they’re so accustomed to simply whipping the ball in behind.

Watch out for these sorts of scenarios in Liverpool’s showdown with Arsenal on Sunday — the modern-day masters of set-piece routines are likely to have something special planned for their trip to Anfield.

(Top photo: Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)