Norwich boss Neil Adams attempted to do what 10 successive managers had recently failed to do; stop the free-scoring Liverpool machine that Brendan Rodgers has assembled.
He decided to use a diamond to neutralise the threats of another diamond.
Teams that have at least caused the Reds problems have started games by concentrating bodies centrally in front of goal and forcing Liverpool to move the ball wide, like Cardiff in the first-half last month or Sunderland in the fixture that followed.
Adams had three of his midfield diamond players just in front of defence to cover the central space; Bradley Johnson centrally, Jonny Howson on his left and Leroy Fer on the right.
At the tip of the diamond, Robert Snodgrass had a crucial role to stop Steven Gerrard from playing freely and picking out runners.
That left Nathan Redmond and Gary Hooper as the two centre forwards. Redmond had to be the more mobile one, looking for space that Liverpool’s full-backs would leave behind.
Liverpool had a similar formation. Gerrard was at the base of the diamond with Lucas Leiva and Joe Allen on either sides of the Reds’ skipper.
Brendan Rodgers expected Norwich to start with a diamond, as has been their recent norm, so he had Philippe Coutinho at the tip of the diamond, where he could pick passes in a tight area.
Luis Suarez and Raheem Sterling were the two strikers. Sterling had a similar role to that of Redmond for the Canaries, in which he could move from side to side looking for spaces on the sides of the hosts’ defence.
As is to be expected now, Liverpool started with incredible energy to quickly score two goals. Tactically, the hosts didn’t do much wrong but the quality and movement of Liverpool was just too much for them to handle.
Trailing 2-0 inside 12 minutes, the Canaries did the sensible thing of pressing for the ball and then trying to get back into the game by keeping the ball.
Liverpool played from the back, with Gerrard frequently dropping deep to initiate play. The Reds generally by-passed Norwich’s high pressing in the first-half.
In the second half, Liverpool started the game in a similar way to their last outing at Anfield against Manchester City; they were off the pace and the Canaries took advantage by increasing their tempo.
The Reds switched to a 4-5-1 with Sterling wide left and Coutinho wide right. They were primarily concentrating on tracking back Norwich’s full-backs.
Norwich increased the number of crosses they delivered into Liverpool’s box and they benefited with two goals, but those goals sandwiched Liverpool’s third so the home side were always chasing the game.
Since Norwich were generally the attacking team in the second half, their manager went for a series of substitutions to increase the number of crosses. They changed their formation to 4-4-2, with Josh Murphy and Redmond operating as wingers.
Snodgrass pushed up as the second striker, who joined in attacking crosses. Norwich caused Liverpool problems with their crosses so Gerrard virtually kept dropping into central midfield as the third defender to mitigate Liverpool’s aerial inferiority.
Liverpool eventually managed to take the sting out of the game by introducing Daniel Agger as the third defender to deal with crosses and Victor Moses as a left winger to stop Whittaker’s threat.
