Liverpool 4-1 Cardiff City: 5 Talking Points and Tactical Analysis, Premier League 2018-19

#2 Liverpool's fringe players once again fail to impress

Lallana had another difficult outing

Having played the Champions League game against Red Star Belgrade in midfield, Klopp decided to ring the changes, bringing in Adam Lallana, Alberto Moreno and Dejan Lovren for Shaqiri, Andy Robertson and Joe Gomez.

None of them did anything major to enhance their respective cases for a regular starting berth, though. Lallana was underwhelming on the right-wing, but you do feel for him.

He's been a player whose best performances for Klopp have come from central midfield. This season, in all his starts, he's been playing on the wings from where his effectiveness reduces drastically. All the injuries have meant that he's lost whatever pace he had, and his decision-making has been painful to watch given the time he's taken on the ball.

Moreno could've done so much better today as well, with the space he was afforded to venture forward. Instead, he almost always took the conservative option when it might have been better for him to attack Cardiff and put balls into the box. When he did cross, he did brilliantly, laying it straight onto Lallana's head just before half-time. Unfortunately, the Englishman's header was cleared off the line.

Moreno and Lovren were both equally culpable for the Cardiff goal though. The Spaniard let Hoilett get away a little too easily on the flank. Once his cross deflected off Van Dijk, Lovren completely switched off allowing Paterson to run across him and slot past Alisson.