When Villarreal had the ball, right and left wingers took position in half-spaces. And Liverpool full backs closed to half-spaces too. It didn’t break Liverpool’s defense line’s safety because when full backs were in half-spaces, they were closer to both wing or centre. So if Villarreal’s players use centre or wings with an extra player, shifting to wing or centre wouldn’t be a problem for Liverpool full backs.
But when wingers shifted to centre from half-spaces between Liverpool defense and midfield lines, full backs didn’t cover them. They kept taking position at half-spaces. So this time, Villarreal’s wingers could use centre between Liverpool defense and midfield lines comfortably to make game.
Normally Liverpool’s defensive midfielder was covering between Liverpool’s defense and midfield lines’ centre. But the problem was, when two Villarreal’s wingers shifted to centre, defensive midfielder couldn’t cover both wingers at the same time.
Stoppers couldn’t close to wingers either because they were already dealing with Villarreal’s two centre forwards.
Also I have to say that, centre forwards used half-spaces to escape to Liverpool defense line’s behind. So this time, they pulled Liverpool full backs to themselves too. And when it happened, Liverpool full backs couldn’t focus on to Villarreal wingers.
Also wingers’ locations were a little bit harder for Liverpool full backs than when wingers were in half-spaces. When wingers were in half-spaces, Liverpool full backs were in half-spaces too. And if wingers wanted to close to midfield to take the ball and make game, full backs just had to close to wingers in a straight way. But when wingers closed to centre, this time, to cover wingers, full backs had to close to wingers from a diagonal way to stop wingers about taking the ball and making game comfortably. And from defense line, because going forward from a straight way is a shorter way if we compare with going from a diagonal way, covering wingers when they were in centre was harder for full backs. So they didn’t close to wingers when wingers shifted to centre.
Also when wingers shifted to centre, actually wingers wouldn’t be full backs’ problem anymore. Because wingers were not in their covering spaces any longer.