TACTICAL ANALYSIS: Liverpool's 6-3 victory in the second game of the Champions League league phase flattered their opponents with plenty of encouraging signs from under-fire stars

When Liverpool's players strolled back into the dressing room at half-time 3-0 up against LASK in the second game of this season's Champions League league phase, it would have been understandable if a few of them were already reflecting on a job well done.

Ronald Araujo and Bradley Barcola had bagged their first goals for Liverpool, Barcola adding his second 13 minutes later to take him two-thirds of the way to a first-ever senior career hat-trick, with the under-fire Florian Wirtz providing the assist.

It had been a strong first-half showing from several youngsters, too, with Lewis Koumas, Rio Ngumoha and Trey Nyoni showing they belong at this level, and the Reds' defence had been completely untroubled by their flailing Austrian opponents.

What Andoni Iraola's side probably didn't realise, though, was that their first-half performance hadn't just been a typical walk in the park against an inferior side in the early stages of the competition - it had been an unprecedentedly dominant one.

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According to Opta, Liverpool's 19 shots were the most ever registered by an away side in the first half of a Champions League game on record. That is significant.

The predictable narrative around how the Reds shipped three goals in a chaotic second half should really be dismissed out of hand. By the time Iraola called his two starting centre-backs to the bench, to be replaced by Joe Gomez and Virgil van Dijk, the focus had very much switched to preserving freshness for the Premier League challenge of Brentford away on Sunday.

Iraola made this clear ahead of the game. "You don't have a lot of time to train [at this stage of the season]," the head coach told reporters in his pre-match press conference.

"You try to prepare the games now. [We train a] little bit outside, but you have to understand the freshness of the players. We are playing four games in 10 days.

"The more Bradley Barcola plays the better his connections will become."

The new Liverpool boss certainly got what he was after. With a busy run ahead against some difficult sides in Brentford, Villarreal, Brighton, Chelsea and Arsenal, matches were always going to be more important than training in terms of building relationships and finding moments to rest.

On Wednesday night in Linz (Oct 15), Liverpool blew their opponents off the field before seeing out the game with minimum energy expended, all while those key connections simmered away encouragingly.

A job well done indeed.

Wing wizardry

After six games without a goal or assist after arriving in one of the most high-profile (and expensive) transfer deals of the summer, tongues were just beginning to wag about Bradley Barcola.

But against LASK, the Frenchman showed why Liverpool paid £123m for his services. Most importantly, he looked like he was having the time of his life on the pitch, trying the kinds of touches and tricks that would normally be reserved for the school playground.

It was the kind of magical individual performance that makes people fall in love with football at an early age. Though his career never quite brought him the goals or the glory Barcola has already achieved at 24, a similar performance of technical wizardry enthralled this writer when watching a young Stephan El Shaarawy make his first forays into Champions League football with Milan in the early 2010s.

The greatest compliment you can give Barcola for last night's performance is that he made football look easy. He occupied the final third like he owned the place, his supreme positioning putting him in the ideal positions to shoot time and again, with an unheard-of 19 touches in the opposition box showing just how difficult it was for LASK's defenders to lay a glove on him.

This was the most by any player in a single Champions League match so far this season, but it was nothing new for Barcola. In PSG's first winning season in Europe's premier competition, 2024/25, it was Barcola who recorded the most touches in the opposition box of any player in the competition, racking up 122 as the Parisian side vanquished all pretenders - including Arne Slot's Liverpool.

Pace is one factor in exploiting spaces, but Barcola's dribbling was effervescent. No player on the pitch attempted as many as his 10 dribbles, with only Rio Ngumoha (seven) completing more than his five - and it was necessary.

Up against a back five, both of Liverpool's wingers were instrumental in breaking down LASK's defensive block. When Iraola took over the reins from Slot, much was made of his preferences for players to take on their immediate opponent to disrupt defensive structures; here, that was on full display.

On the opposite side, Rio may not have contributed a goal or assist, but his performance was his finest yet on the right. Playing slightly inside with Jeremie Frimpong providing the width and Wirtz and Ryan Gravenberch behind to overload LASK's five-man defence, Rio seized his moment.

The 18-year-old completed an astonishing 78% of his nine attempted dribbles, and though he created just one chance according to Fotmob he was instrumental in Barcola's first and third goals.

For the first, good hold-up play from the impressive Koumas - who could have had his own hat-trick with better timing on a couple of runs - brought Rio into the game, who proceeded to beat five players before being bundled over, with Koumas dutifully laying the loose ball off for Barcola to open his Liverpool account.

If that second goal of the game was a triumph of pure will, the fifth showed Rio's more subtle qualities. Spinning past Alessandro Schopf as if he wasn't there, the winger played a perfectly-weighted through ball to Frimpong on the overlap, who clocked his first of two smart assists on the day in sliding the ball through the six-yard box for Barcola to tap home.

As well as showing off their technical prowess, both wingers demonstrated their physical superiority. The pair were ahead of the rest of the pack in terms of both contesting and winning their duels, Rio winning nine of his 13 and Barcola close behind with five of his 11.

Barcola is 6'0" tall, and uses his longer legs to his advantage in reaching the ball ahead of an opponent. One interception, four recoveries and a clearance also show the work rate of a competitive forward, who relishes the physical battles with his opponent.

Rio, though, is built different and, standing at 5'7", he needs to be. Given he made his first appearances for the club as a 16-year-old, a physical transformation was to be expected, but Rio's bulking-up has perhaps received less attention than it merits.

Never the fastest winger, the former Chelsea academy player needed to find different ways to beat an opponent. Still in his teen years, he is gradually mastering the art of the dribble but on the pitch, he looks nearly as wide as he is tall, his low centre of gravity making defenders almost seem to bounce off him.

Against LASK, he showed how difficult it is to win the ball off him cleanly, winning two fouls for his troubles, and has now laid down a serious claim to keep his place alongside Barcola in the starting XI against Brentford.

Wirtz repeating

To suggest that Wirtz has never showed his class at Liverpool would be to ignore the spell from December to the end of January when the playmaker notched four goals and two assists in eight Premier League games, but there was no way he would escape the critics after two awful performances against Bournemouth and Manchester City.

One assist against Austrian opposition won't be enough to get the doubters off his back, but anyone who watched Wednesday's game - especially the first half, in which he dominated Liverpool's attacks - saw how silky and intelligent Wirtz's game can be.

Statistically speaking, 0.11 xA (expected assists) only ranks Wirtz fifth among Liverpool's players on the night, while three chances created puts the 23-year-old third, behind the two full-backs Frimpong and Kostas Tsimikas.

Wirtz was, however, the main source of shots for Liverpool, racking up six on the night with two on target the second-most of any player behind Barcola.

As usual, Wirtz's off-the-ball work was strong. His two tackles were the most by a Liverpool player, while only Rio won more than Wirtz's five duels.

Encouragingly, the German international played also with the swagger on the ball that has been missing this season, completing two of three attempted dribbles and catching the eye with a nutmeg in the lead-up to Gravenberch hitting the woodwork.

It was a much-improved performance, and the numbers do not do justice to just how central Wirtz was to everything good that Liverpool did as they piled on the goals.

But even so, there were moments that might well have left fans scratching their heads - not least the aforementioned nutmeg. When Wirtz collected the ball, recovered by Nyoni, the pitch seemed to open up in front of him.

Charging towards a 20-yard gap that had appeared in LASK's backline, only the referee temporarily blocked his route to goal. With Lukas Jungwirth off his line, Wirtz's first touch seemed to put the ball into a perfect position for him to test the goalkeeper's reflexes.

Admittedly, only the most confident players would try this from 40 yards, but Wirtz's second touch took him a good 15 yards closer to goal with the opportunity still on to score his first goal of the 2026/27 season.

Then, inexplicably, Wirtz slowed down, allowing Xavier Mbuyama to close off the angle. The turn and nutmeg that followed to find Barcola was impudent and classy, but why oh why did Wirtz not take the opportunity to shoot by himself?

Looking at his pass map from the game, similar concerns arise. For as much as Wirtz was involved everywhere - and he was - just three of his attempted passes were directed into the penalty area.

For a player who was brought into the team to be its main creator, this simply isn't enough in a game that Liverpool dominated. Clearly, it isn't that Wirtz lacks the ability - on one of the few occasions he did try a forward pass into the box, Barcola scored from it - but this is still a player short of confidence.

It was his best performance of the season, but there are still serious questions to be answered over whether Wirtz has it in him to shoulder the responsibility and become Liverpool's main man.

To put these doubts to bed, he needs to start small, with solid, reliable performances, and work from there. A similar performance against Brentford would be good start, but eventually we need to start seeing Wirtz contributing to the scoresheet week in, week out.

Midfield finds its balance

Not entirely dissimilar to what we've seen so far under Iraola, Liverpool's attacking shape put a lot of emphasis on one of the two pivot players in midfield as the Reds looked to create overloads in the final third.

As he did against Tottenham in the Carabao Cup, it was 19-year-old Trey Nyoni who took on that role against LASK. In his previous start this season, he had been partnered in the middle with Alexis Mac Allister, the pick of Liverpool's midfielders this season, who operated in a slightly more advanced role than he has typically done in the Premier League.

More of a passer and a shooter than a ball-carrier, Mac Allister nevertheless grabbed a goal and an assist against Spurs with Nyoni alongside him.

Gravenberch almost found himself on the scoresheet in this game but, as a pair, the Dutchman and the academy graduate possess complimentary skillsets that had left supporters excited to see how they might fare together.

On this evidence, the budding partnership bodes well. With Nyoni effectively operating as the sole deep-lying midfielder in possession and Tsimikas staying behind the ball, Gravenberch effectively had the run of the left side of the pitch in support of Barcola.

Much like he did against City, Gravenberch attacked with purpose and stitched moves together brilliantly without having to shoulder the responsibility of being the main man in the middle dictating the play and cutting out opposition attacks.

Gravenberch made just the seventh-most touches (53) among Liverpool's XI, but all 38 of his attempted passes found their man and five of them broke a defensive line.

With one chance created and two shots, Gravenberch was consistently involved without getting caught out of position - underlined by his seven recoveries, three interceptions, and seven defensive contributions, all the most by any Liverpool player.

Behind him, Nyoni ticked along nicely, spared the stresses of constantly dealing with LASK breaks by the strong defensive work of Gravenberch and Wirtz in front.

Only Tsimikas made more than Nyoni's 105 touches, with the youngster Liverpool's most prolific passer with 82 of his attempted 90 finding their man.

An impressive 10 of these were classified as line-breaking passes by Fotmob, again second behind Tsimikas, while Nyoni also chipped in with a tackle, two interceptions, three clearances and four recoveries, not being dribbled past a single time during the game.

Excitingly, 12 of Nyoni's passes were into the feet of Wirtz (Opta). Finding the No. 7 in pockets of space will be crucial to any hopes Iraola has of getting the best out of him, and the signs in pre-season that indicated Nyoni could do this were backed up here in another quietly influential display.

Some slight indecision in the lead-up to LASK's second goal wasn't the best look for him, but Nyoni was far from the only player to lose a bit of concentration with the result already in the bag.

There is a case to be made that a midfield pairing of Nyoni and Gravenberch possesses the most ideal balance for what Iraola is trying to do at Liverpool and, with a performance like this, both players have done themselves no shortage of favours in terms of getting more time on the pitch together in the months ahead.

It won't happen again this weekend, with Gravenberch suspended following his second yellow card against City, but Nyoni is now odds-on to start alongside Mac Allister again if Dominik Szoboszlai remains injured - and supporters will have few concerns about seeing him in action again so soon.

Time to prove doubters wrong

This may have been a brilliant performance, but all that most talking heads and opposition supporters will see is the number '3' next to LASK's name on the scoresheet, rather than the '6' next to Liverpool's.

Indeed, if you are a Liverpool fan and you have doubts about how much this performance can be treated as a marker of the team's progress, that's not an unfounded opinion to hold.

Players like Wirtz and Frimpong have generally fared better in European competition since joining Liverpool, and even Barcola is yet to make his mark on the Premier League - albeit after just 258 minutes of league action.

Everyone expects a club like Liverpool to beat a team like LASK. That is no disrespect to the Austrian champions. It is simply an honest reflection of the pecking order of European leagues, and the Premier League's financial dominance - according to Transfermarkt, Liverpool's squad was worth more than 15 times the value of their opponents'.

Likewise, those who didn't watch the weekend's game against City may have taken one look at the scoreline and concluded that Liverpool were outclassed by Enzo Maresca's side from start to finish.

Let's face it, those who were hoping for the Reds to dish out a thumping to their increasingly-unpopular rivals won't have been in a hurry to watch the highlights.

In a world where we know the outcome of every game before sitting down to watch Match of the Day, football - like most things - has become a business of short patience and even shorter attention spans.

But this cannot affect Iraola and Liverpool. When replacing a title-winning manager in the summer, Liverpool's hierarchy had to be convinced they were getting the right man, had to accept that things may take time to click and, most importantly, had to be 100% sold that this was a worthwhile trade-off.

Similarly, if Iraola is convinced that Wirtz will come good, then he will block out the noise telling him otherwise - from pundits and opposition fans, yes, but also from Liverpool supporters.

And as for supporters, our own sanity could benefit from blocking out some of the noise around Liverpool, be it around the defence (a questionable narrative at best for a side that didn't concede in the league for 350 minutes), the players, or even - because it will eventually happen - the manager.

Ultimately, we are all here to enjoy the game. And fortunately, Liverpool gave us plenty to enjoy on Wednesday night.

Now it's time to do it against Brentford.