Jurgen Klopp knows exactly how to limit Vardy’s threat and protect Liverpool’s makeshift defence – Liverpool Echo

Jamie Vardy loves bloodying the noses of the Premier League big boys.
There are four clubs who he has scored at least seven goals against in his career, and three of them are Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool.
Only Andy Cole and Thierry Henry have netted more Premier League goals against the Reds than Vardy. It’s not bad company to be keeping.
However, only two of his seven goals against Liverpool have come at Anfield, and both have stemmed from defensive errors on the part of the home side.
In 2017, a sloppy pass from Joel Matip was intercepted and eventually fed to Vardy who scored.
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And the mistake the previous season was even worse, as Lucas Leiva passed directly to the Leicester forward, leaving him with an open goal. A rare assist from the Brazilian, as he joked afterward.
A defensive blunder occurring on Sunday can’t be ruled out. Jurgen Klopp will almost certainly have to deploy a backline that has never played together before, containing players who are either inexperienced or largely unfamiliar with their position.
But exclude his two error-assisted efforts for the sake of argument, and Vardy has only had five shots in six matches and 494 minutes on the pitch at Anfield.
And while the current Golden Boot holder is also joint-top of the Premier League goalscorer standings for 2020/21, five of his eight strikes have come from the penalty spot.
Take penalties out of the equation, and the Leicester talisman has managed just 10 shots this term (per Understat
). Yet what is more remarkable is six of them have been classified as clear-cut chances.
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Just 14% of non-penalty shots in the Premier League this season have been deemed as clear-cut opportunities by Opta. For Vardy, however, that percentage stands at 60.
While not as extreme, when he won the Golden Boot last season, 36% of his shots (excluding penalties) were clear-cut chances just five of his 23 goals came from opportunities that were relatively low quality.
In other words, while Vardy’s pace and movement help his side to generate high-value chances, if an opposition side can prevent this, then the 33-year-old is unlikely to hurt them.
Its also clear this season how much Vardy thrives on service from his teammates. Ignore the penalties and only one of his 10 shots has not come about following a key pass from a colleague, and the same was true for just three of his league goals in 2019/20.
Vardy isnt sniffing around the box looking to profit from loose balls and rebounds, he needs to be teed up.
Preventing him from receiving the ball combined with a deeper defensive line to prevent the space he can run into is the key to nullifying the threat Vardy poses. And this has been seen at Anfield in the past.
In last seasons corresponding fixture at Anfield, Leicesters number nine received just 11 passes (per FBRef
). It was the joint-fourth fewest which found him in a match in which he played 90 minutes last season, and more crucially, it was the lowest success rate Leicester had for finding him with passes all year.
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Where 41% of their attempts found Vardy in 2019/20, just 28% did in their 2-1 away loss at Liverpool.
Vardy only received 11 passes 24% of the attempted total at Anfield the previous season, too.
And what else do Leicesters last two visits to the red half of Merseyside have in common? Vardy hasnt had a single shot in either game despite playing the full match on both occasions.
The Reds starved him of supply as well as anyone in recent years and he offered no attacking threat. A repeat performance on Sunday should carry Liverpool a long way towards keeping a priceless clean sheet.read more