Saturday, February 27, 2021

The Biggest Issue Facing Liverpool FC by Paul Tomkins

 https://tomkinstimes.com/2021/02/the-biggest-issue-facing-liverpool-fc-an-alternative-free-friday/

 

Due to several injuries to the centre-backs at TTT Towers (including our reserve centre-backs, who were de facto central midfielders with the attributes to be top centre-backs), there is no normal Free Friday this week.

(This article will also be available via our Substack-based email newsletter.)

We were also planning to use this week to focus on the officiating issues in a big one-off piece, having looked at the other Black Swan issues last week. But as hinted at, this week hasn’t gone to plan. Most of that piece is written, and the video collated, but there are so many issues to focus on, so we’d rather take our time and get it right.

(We’ll be slowing down on the free articles too, once we’ve released that. They don’t pay the bills.)

While Liverpool are having the opposite kind of results in 2020/21, and especially in this calendar year, I think the reasons behind the success that I outlined in both “Mentality Monsters” (2019) and “Perched” (2020) are actually enlightening examples of what the club has lacked this season, via the unprecedented injury crisis and the absence of an ultra-fitness regime due to no proper preseason because of the pandemic (and which has been compounded by terrible officiating; the Reds have been cost more points than any other clubs by tight calls – including wrong calls – and while you can say that’s just bad luck, it is bad luck that’s also heavily affected many results, as so many of the decisions were super-tight calls in super-tight games, that if given the other way would likely reverse the result, too. But that’ll be looked at in the aforementioned big officiating study).

The decisions any manager makes will backfire at times: no one makes the correct judgement call every time unless they are working only with hindsight; and whatever decisions a manager makes will succeed and fail on things like whether or not the strikers take their chances. But when the squad is so stretched, it’s difficult to produce the very things that made Liverpool such an outstanding team from 2018 to 2020. If you take almost all of the outstanding qualities out of a team, you have a team that is no longer outstanding. It should be logical. No one can have outstanding qualities in reserve, and even if you have four outstanding centre-back options, as Liverpool did, it’s not much help if they are all injured.

In “Mentality Monsters” I analysed in depth, and praised, the transfers that were undertaken up to 2018 to solve specific weaknesses from when Jürgen Klopp took charge: things I’d been talking about being in need of addressing way back in 2015, before he arrived: lack of pace, lack of goals, ineffectiveness at set-pieces (at both ends) due to a lack of height and power, lack of defensive authority, and goalkeeping weaknesses.

While signing players like Sadio Mané and Mo Salah addressed the issues of pace and goals – and did so with a value for money that remains staggering – the signings of Virgil van Dijk, Joel Matip, Fabinho and Alisson gave Liverpool a platform of 6’3″-6’5″ players in the defensive diamond (GK-CB-CB-DM), that could dip slightly to the range of 6’2″-6’5″ if Joe Gomez, maturing as a young defender, played instead (and a lot more pace was added in compensation for the small reduction in height). People focus on different members of this quartet of signings, but all were vital in their own way. Each added a new dimension, and some, like van Dijk, added several dimensions. Alisson, though off form in 2021 and now facing up to personal tragedy, had been a rock since he arrived.

At left-back, and not part of this defensive diamond, Andy Robertson – as well as his other qualities – was still a three-inch upgrade on Alberto Moreno (who had the worst aerial duel success rate for the defender in the league), but a 5’10” defender cannot do much if suddenly he’s one of the tallest players in the team.

A team that averages 5’10” is actually as small as any I have in my database of Premier League teams since 2015, and Liverpool averaged 5’10” in 2015.

After increasing that height with the four big (in every sense) signings, the Reds average 5’10” again right now.

This is not La Liga; the Premier League involves brutal aerial warfare, as Everton showed last week, with a succession of up-and-unders in gale-force winds. (The team Everton fielded was much taller the Reds’. The players they used had an aerial duel success rate in excess of 50% so far this season; the Reds had one that was way down around 35%. That’s a huge difference, and being weak in the air can unsettle a team, as we saw. It’s not rocket science.)

One major thing lacking in the analysis I read elsewhere that is driving me mad – and which was easy enough to find (courtesy of some help from Andrew Beasley) – is how Liverpool have gone from scoring a set-piece goal every three games with the pairing of van Dijk and Matip (and one every four games with just Matip and anyone bar van Dijk) to 1-in-19 in the 19 games the Reds have played without both since August 2018 (most of which have been this season, as van Dijk was a virtual ever-present up to then).

Everyone thinks of those players with their defending, and obviously they are vital; but if anything, their attacking contribution is even greater (compared to the players who have replaced them, and who were largely helping to keep clean sheets until, finally, pretty much everyone ended up injured). Some wise folk have also noted the huge loss of van Dijk’s sumptuous, game-changing passing, and last season he was involved in some way (i.e. at some point in the move) in a staggering half of the Reds’ goals.

Irrespective of the defensive instability with 27 different GK-CB-CB combinations so far this season, these injuries have effectively taken a prolific goalscorer out of the team (a 12th man that represents the sum of excess goals the Reds scored) and replaced “him” with no one. Liverpool’s set-pieces were the actual 12th man. (And of course, what I will now have to renumber as the “13th man” – the Kop – is absent too, where, after three years without a home league defeat, Liverpool, in an empty Anfield, suffered four in a row. This factor is also surely huge, and another reason to look forward to next season.)

If van Dijk and Matip play, and Fabinho also plays in midfield, that not only helps the Reds in their own box, but that’s three big players to mark at the other end, two of whom are very difficult to stop. Jordan Henderson, big and strong, becomes a fourth 6-footer.

If they all play, they score headed goals or make headed assists; or they act as decoys to make room for the smaller guys, who can at that point only be marked by smaller opposition players, to nip in. When none of the big guns play, the set-piece goals absolutely dry up. Roberto Firmino will find less space, at 5’11”, if he’s one of the Reds’ tallest players, than if he’s 5th or 6th tallest.

(Interestingly, the only set-piece goal Liverpool have scored when without both van Dijk and Matip was against Spurs, when Henderson blocked off the runner – which could have been labelled a foul, albeit it would have been in stark contrast to how teams could wrestle van Dijk and Matip each week with impunity when they did play – was from a perfect delivery met perfectly by Firmino, who was standing right next to 6’5″ Rhys Williams.)

Irrespective of tactics, pressing numbers, passing speed, strikers missing a freakish and uncharacteristic percentage of big chances (as shown in this excellent piece), or anything else you may try to weigh up (all of which play a part to varying degrees in this ultra-complex situation), Liverpool have lost the number of set-piece goals that could have earned perhaps 6-9 extra points since Christmas.

Not least as set-piece goals, whilst still relying on “finishing” skills to some degree, are often quick, instinctive, first-time situations close to goal – and not something anyone has any time to overthink (in the way that a striker in on goal from the halfway line, if low on confidence, probably wants a hole to open up and swallow him). Think of how many goals are scored with players’ shoulders, like Henderson’s “header” at Wolves last season, or headers that were never meant to end up quite where intended.

It’s often about a bloody big player who is good at the meeting a well-hit ball, from where it ends in the back of the net; there is often no complicated buildup (although that can win the corner to start with), but just a good delivery and someone meeting it, with the power already “on” the ball. It doesn’t even need to be that clever. This is how Liverpool beat Brighton and Manchester United at home last season, and Chelsea and Aston Villa away.

(The latter was a Mané header, but he found space at the near post as the big guys were being marked in the middle of the area, which allowed the near-post run to pay off.)

These types of situations also opened the scoring at home to Arsenal in a 3-1 win, and away at Leicester in a 4-0 win and Wolves in a 2-1 victory; and helped to beat Leeds at the start of this season.

If the keeper saves, or it hits the woodwork or a defender somehow blocks, someone else might stab it home. This – as part of the chaos and nervousness players like van Dijk and Matip can cause the opposition – is how Liverpool beat Crystal Palace away last season.

All huge goals, and that’s not counting the set-piece goals that put games to bed (to go ahead by three goals or more), or earned points in the Champions League in the previous two seasons (think of them all!); all lacking in 2021, when the Reds have yet to score a single set-piece goal, and it’s nearly March.

There are so many things other than set-piece threat that Liverpool are struggling with, but to me it’s the most quantifiable. It’s why I won’t let it lie.

And since I started analysing the links between height and set-pieces in 2015 (which should be obvious – I found that, on average, aerial success rates increase with every additional inch of height – but which people still ignore because occasionally a smaller player will score a header), Premier League teams seem to have got bigger.

Back then it was West Brom and Watford whose outfield players averaged 6’0″-6’1″. Liverpool were terrible in the air in 2015 as they averaged 5’10”.

Now, as well as Burnley being 6’0″-6’1″, Liverpool have recently faced lineups from Manchester United, Everton and “footballing” Brighton that are as tall as those long-ball teams from six years ago. Brighton had four players who were 6’4″ or over; and one who was 6’7″, whose height created the winning goal. Burnley and Everton caused chaos with launched up-and-unders, winning penalties on the back of that unsettling percentage play.

In the past, Man City had a small defensive diamond; this season it’s two 6’2″ centre-backs and keeper, and a 6’3″ defensive midfielder who has won a ton of headers.

Liverpool were not a “tall” team overall in the previous two seasons (who’d want to sacrifice Salah and Mané for a couple of giants?), but they had an extremely tall defensive diamond, and it also became its set-piece attacking threat.

This is vitally important, as Liverpool have no attacking players who are aerial threats in general (they may score a header from open play if they are in space and the ball is perfect: Mané is great in the air, but not really a set-piece threat if he’s being closely marked by someone who is 6’3″).

As I noted recently, around 25% of Liverpool’s league goals last season came from set-pieces. They scored twenty in total. Right now, pro rata (in games without the big guns), they are on par for two. They’re not even having big chances from corners and wide free-kicks. The delivery has often been good, but a bunch of 5’9″ players stand little chance in a crowded area if everyone on the opposition is over 6’0″ tall, and they have no one to act as decoys.

All of the “bodyguard”/set-piece players, who allowed the team to do its skilful thing (as well as dealing with opposition hoofs), are out injured. These are also the heavy cudgels who turned 20 promising attacking situations – corners and free-kicks, often won with fast moves – into the hammer blows of goals.

I also talked a lot about team stability in those aforementioned books – about the benefits of the shared understanding of a team that has been together for a number of years – and if Ben Davies makes his debut in the coming weeks, this season will have seen the Reds use TEN “new” players in the Premier League this season – players who had never started a league game for the club as recently as eight months ago; as well as the aforementioned 27 combinations of goalkeeper-centre-back-centre-back, that will become 28 combinations this weekend, and likely hit 30 soon (if Alisson is given compassionate leave this weekend for the horror of his father dying in an accident).

In contrast to the teams doing well in the league, Liverpool have given about 2,000 league minutes to players who were rookies going into this campaign; over TEN TIMES the average of teams – City, Leicester, Chelsea and Man United – likeliest to finish in the top four (some of whom, like Chelsea, had high rookie minutes last season: two seasons ago, Mason Mount and Reece James were on loan in the Championship; last season they each played thousands of Premier League and Champions League minutes; this season they are no longer rookies. Before this season, by stark contrast, Curtis Jones had almost no Premier League and Champions League minutes under his belt. Essentially, Jones is having the “senior adaptation” season that Mount and James were allowed last season).

I didn’t check Arsenal’s rookie minutes for 2020/21, but I imagine it’s also very high. They’re mid-table for a reason. Part of that was a choice on their part, but also driven by the fact that the manager didn’t like many of the senior players he inherited last season, and Arsenal have been more strapped for cash in recent times. (I’d expect the various Arsenal youngsters to be better still next season.)

As brilliantly as Curtis Jones and others have often done for Liverpool, they were not supposed to be playing this many minutes. Long term it will do them good, and do the club good. But short term, the team is less experienced, individually and as a collective. (And at times they’ve cost the team points, as happens.)

That’s in addition to the lack of pace (Gomez, van Dijk, Jota), height (van Dijk, Matip, Fabinho and now Henderson), goals (Jota, Keita and Oxlade-Chamberlain from midfield, and van Dijk and Matip from set-pieces) that the injuries have denied this team.

In other words, a ton of extra dimensions, all of which were lacking back in 2015, and all of which were added as the team improved (and which remain at the club, just currently unavailable).

And that’s before the unquantifiable damage done when Thiago missed three months, and the fact that two months out harmed Kostas Tsimikas’ chances of giving Robertson a rest.

So you can’t really blame the manager or the club for fixing all those problems so superbly well, only to then lose those players to injuries, many of which were freakish collision- or foul-based incidents.

That’s why I keep hammering home the point that this is a Black Swan season, and that – even though the club may look to improve the squad in the summer – the return to fitness of a ton of elite players (and the return from loan of others) will itself be like a £350m spending spree. It’s also why I find making any judgements about this season so unhelpful.

You can’t luckily or accidentally reach two Champions League finals in a row, winning one; and you can’t luckily or accidentally rack up 97 and 99 points in a row – the latter landing the league title quicker than any team in history. But you can have enough accidents and bad luck to take away all your best attributes. The worst luck would be for none of these players to be fit even for next season, but I dare not even contemplate such insane misfortune.

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Liverpool’s £300m Summer Arrivals Revealed! By Paul Tomkins

 https://tomkinstimes.com/2021/02/liverpools-300m-summer-arrivals-revealed/

 

In a secret deal, late last summer, Liverpool chose to sell Virgil van Dijk to Real Madrid, for a fee to be paid in the future. In October, the Reds allowed Joe Gomez leave on a free transfer. Soon after, Liverpool chose to sell Diogo Jota to a club in Outer Sibera for three months, with a £70m buyback clause that actives soon. Halfway through the season, Joel Matip was offloaded to save on the wage bill, his contract cancelled.

Thiago, Naby Keita, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and various others were deemed surplus to requirements in the first half of the season. Rather than be allowed to get fit, the club forced them to wear knee braces and leg restraints, to test their character.

Fabinho, excelling as the 4th-choice centre-back, was allowed to miss a dozen games because the club’s hierarchy wanted to see what it would be like to eventually use the 9th- and 10-choice centre-backs. Meanwhile, Jordan Henderson was told he need not bother continuing as an emergency centre-back – he was hauled off after 20 minutes against Everton – in part because of the desire to try out as many rookies as possible, and partly because his middle name is Brian.

Liverpool chose to use three different keepers this season in the league, just to show off the various change kits, and have thus far opted for a total – I kid you not – of TWENTY-SEVEN different goalkeeper-left-centre-back-right-centre-back permutations simply because Jürgen Klopp loves the word ‘permutations’. And it’ll be 28 at the weekend.

(The stat about the GK-CB-CB trios is courtesy of Andrew Beasley, whose superb analysis of the Reds’ freakishly bad/unlucky run of finishing in 2021 in like gold-dust for TTT subscribers.)

All such transfers would obviously be utter madness.

Obviously.

And yet people would have rightly said “you can’t win the league if you sell half a dozen of your very best players all at once!” and “it’s insane for a club to leave themselves exposed by getting rid of five centre-backs”, or “£300m for players sold and no one bought with that money!”

But have them all be injured, and it’s “stop whinging!”

And as I noted the other day, there’s the madness of thinking this is just a case of one player (van Dijk) being out. An injury to the world’s best defender is major; an injury crisis including that player is beyond the worst of luck.

Of course, if Liverpool had sold or loaned those players (for a fee) they’d have had the money to buy new players. Maybe £300m. In the short term, it would be miles better to have sold them and spent the £300m on players than to have van Dijk, Gomez, Matip et al unable to play anyway.

But then the club wouldn’t have those players back in the summer.

Instead, the club have neither the use of the players nor the fees to reinvest. These group of players are still being paid millions per week, and cannot help the team.

In the long-term, Liverpool are likely to have £300m of talent, currently absent, available again in the summer. Some, in the cases of Jota, Fabinho and Keita (£150m-worth of talent), are due back in the team sooner than the summer, but about £150m-worth of centre-backs on the open market will move from the Kirkby rehab gym to the training pitches.

Even before signing anyone else, that’s £300m of talent to go into the squad. While they cost in excess of £200m, those players are now worth over £300m.

£300m!

(And let’s be clear: Henderson and Milner, also currently out, have a lot of leadership value too. I was just about to publish this piece when news broke that Henderson could be out for the season, too. This is now a flock of Black Swans. Three first-choice and one stand-in centre-back out for the season?! Fabinho also still not back?!)

Harvey Elliott, at least a £50m-talent if he was on the free market doing what he’s doing aged just 17 (with a ceiling to be a £100m player, no doubt), will return in the summer. He was due to be part of the Reds’ squad this season, having been blooded the season before.

These players will need no settling in, no adjustment to teammates, no adaptation to the league, no time getting their heads around new tactics, or adjusting to the pressure of the heavy shirt: just to have overcome injuries that, by then, they should have overcome. This is not a guarantee, but their operations went well, and the rehab just needs time.

That’s just one of several things to look forward to, as I will go on to cover in the rest of this article – but the way the luck is going (with injuries and in front of goal, and all season with refs and VAR), we may only have next season to look forward to at this point – this season is an un utter clusterfuck of insane obstacles, albeit one from which lessons can be learned.

The rest of this article is for subscribers only. See details below on how to sign up to our intelligent, troll-free community; even if the headline of this piece – rather than be intended as trolling or clickbait – is purposely designed to grab the attention of those who can’t see the irony in wanting new players in the summer (or tons of big changes) when there’s £300m-£350m-worth waiting to return.

Friday, February 19, 2021

The Mother of All Black Swans In a Tailspin – TTT Subscribers & Writers Give the Real Reasons For Liverpool’s League Struggles by Paul Tomkins

 https://tomkinstimes.com/2021/02/the-mother-of-all-black-swans-in-a-tailspin-ttt-subscribers-writers-give-the-real-reasons-for-liverpools-league-struggles/





 

By Paul Tomkins, Chris Rowland, Daniel Rhodes, Andrew Beasley and various members of the TTT community

Liverpool got back on track with a very impressive away win against German neo-giants Leipzig – although the stats showed that the Reds have been lucky defensively in the Champions League (teams not taking their big chances) and unlucky in the league (opposition teams taking more of their chances than last season).

The league form continues to be well below expectations, for a whole host of reasons that– as this site’s writers and commenters – we will try to unpack below. This piece aims to add to previous attempts like my dismantling of the arguments of numpties like Roy Keane), with new dimensions, and with the intention to try to think of every last thing (whilst obviously accepting that such an undertaking, in a season of so much craziness, is nearly impossible).

A lot of the issues can be dated back to the utterly insane game at Goodison Park, so it’s timely that the return fixture takes place this weekend. (How many Liverpool players will Jordan Pickford and Richarlison try to maim this time? What a shame the Kop will not be there to give them a warm welcome!)

We’ve also tried to collate many of the most illuminating graphics and charts that we’ve created or which we’ve stumbled across, many of which have appeared in other TTT articles – but the aim here is to try and make this article as close to a full health check for the Reds from a team of medics, rather than a cursory glance from a distracted doctor. (Even then, we won’t catch every little ailment.)

Subscriber Tony McKenna first introduced us on TTT to the Black Swan a decade or so ago, and this is a piece he wrote in 2014 on the issue:

Based on the work of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the Wikipedia definition is that:

“A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. Black swan events are characterised by their extreme rarity, severe impact, and the widespread insistence they were obvious in hindsight.”

Chris Rowland: To say much has been made of Liverpool’s travails lately would be an understatement worthy of calling the Atlantic a ‘whole bunch of water’ (copyright Terry Gilliam, Monty Python!).

Little of it has been analytic or in-depth, or taken any account of context. Or even got the basic facts right. Just damn them with generalised and superficial cliches and pretend that’s job done.

Example: Martin Keown after the Leicester away game:

“That central defensive position is where the problems lie.

“Klopp has lost defenders and taken two midfielders out into the defence. That is four changes from the team who did so well and he doesn’t need to do that. It is too many.

“Without Gomez and Van Dijk they have one hand tied behind their backs. The wheels have come off. Klopp needs to get that position sorted.”

Fact: but it wasn’t just Joe Gomez and Virgil van Dijk missing injured was it? It was also Matip, Fabinho and new signing Ben Davies. Fabinho couldn’t have played in midfield, or defence, or anywhere else!

Henderson and new signing Ozan Kabak played centre-back because the only other two available were rookies Rhys Williams and Nat Phillips, neither blessed with great pace. Against Jamie Vardy and Harvey Barnes! Really? But that typical combination of ignorance of the full facts and failure to consider context, both of which Keown’s comments graphically illustrate, are the sort of reason why we decided to compile this article. So instead of blithely saying ‘he should get those positions sorted’, perhaps he should try suggesting how, within the confines he has to work in. That might be worth listening to.

When it  comes to understanding and investigating the real reasons for Liverpool’s demise this season, TTT subscribers are in the habit of digging deeper, and examining context, of looking at the factors that are having an influence, and providing the data to back it all up.

So here is a round up of what TTT subscribers have had to say lately about the main reasons why Liverpool, after two seasons of 97 and 99 points, two consecutive Champions League finals, a World Club Championship and a European Super Cup, are finding those impossibly astronomic standards hard to match this time round.

‘Excuses’, as Roy Keane, Richard Keys and keyboard warriors with the attention span of an aubergine might say.

Or ‘extenuating circumstances combining to produce an inevitable conclusion’, as TTT subscribers might put it.

This in-depth read includes ground covered in other TTT articles, but also offers a more focussed rundown of the issues.

Overview

First, a summary from Aquaman:

Like many of you I’m sure, you’d be part of alternate forums like Twitter (which can swing to the extremes as fast as you can type your tweet mid sentence before posting) or WhatsApp groups (probably a set of closer friends you know). And the general narrative I’m seeing right now [so ignoring the obvious lunatics and those turning on the club and players] from these forums is that:

1. The officiating is utter nonsense and blatantly against us
2. Our injuries are deep rooted enough to expect not challenging for the title

These are independent narratives. It’s either or. But the reality is, each of it (and a few more factors) mesh together to make this the perfect storm. I’ll throw in another cliche. Each are dominoes that causes the next.

1. Pandemic
2. No crowds caused by pandemic
3. Compressed schedule caused by pandemic
4. Physical fatigue caused by compressed schedule
5. Injuries caused by fatigue
6. Bad officiating caused by no crowds (to a certain extent)
7. Injuries caused by bad officiating
8. Mental and emotional fatigue caused by bad officiating
9. Mental and emotional fatigue caused by physical injuries distributed within squad
10. Emotional fatigue caused by pandemic
11. Slow reinforcements caused by no crowds (no income) and pandemic (inflated prices)

I’m sure I’m missing a whole lot more, but it is indeed a Perfect Storm and our bright red ship is right now in the middle of it. And like all storms, you’ve got to ride it through, provided your ship is fundamentally a steady ship with a steady crew.

Crisis? I’m not sure we are in one yet because, as the underlying numbers and even our naked eye tells us, we’re still playing good football. The players are still playing for Jürgen. The owners haven’t deserted Jürgen (although there’s arguments that they should’ve been a little bit more flexible with earlier reinforcements, but hindsight’s always great, eh). Jürgen’s coaching team are still loyal to him. So, our ship is fundamentally steady. Our crew are fundamentally steady.

But why, as other clubs cheerleaders and our own doubters would ask as they scream joyously, is this a unique storm just for Liverpool Football Club? The pandemic and bad officiating is prevalent to all. It’s because they see the two narratives above as independent, and not see the whole storm, it’s full force of nature, and all the contributing factors leading to it.

RDuckerAn extract from an article found on The Athletic. It seems we are much less likely to play a risky pass this season, compared to all seasons under Klopp. The author provides two examples in the City game when City were defending facing their goal but rather than play the ball forward we played it sideways, allowing City to get in a proper shape.

“The speed in which Liverpool typically turn defence into attack is what you most associate with a Klopp team. Using this transition to quickly get a shot at goal with the speed of their front three has been consistently strong, but interestingly this has dropped off this year.

Looking at the directness of the attack, we can see Liverpool were taking a shot 3.6 times per 90 minutes within 15 seconds of recovering the ball. As expected, that put them top of the list in the Premier League for direct attacks from front to back.

This year, their numbers are lower and, interestingly, the lowest of any season under Klopp. They are now average 3.0 shots per 90 within 15 seconds of recovering the ball — which puts them fourth in the league behind Leeds United, Manchester United and Aston Villa.”

“Liverpool are holding onto possession for two seconds longer this season than the last one. This might not sound like a lot, but it could be the difference between catching the opposition out of shape or not. Many might point to this change coinciding with the introduction of Thiago Alcantara into the team — it will be interesting to look closer into this once the Spaniard has played a larger number of games than his current eight league starts.

Likewise, the slower tempo is shown by more of their possessions consisting of at least nine passes compared with last season. Given how Liverpool typically like to play at breakneck speed, this difference is all the more noticeable.”

Paul Tomkins: regarding RDucker’s post above, as Thiago has barely played, it’s funny the author of that Athletic piece should mention his name, even if it’s to say that he may not have played enough. Personally, I think Thiago as a problem (beyond his dreadful sliding tackles) has been a red herring. To have only played a few games at the time the piece was written seems to prove that he can’t have slowed Liverpool down across the season. Also, he’s been one of Liverpool’s best pressers, so it’s not like he’s slow in that department.

Rather than it be any desired change, the team is different in so many ways from last season, due to injury, lack of preseason, etc.. I think it’s a valid observation – if the Reds have indeed been making more passes, then that is something to highlight to be aware of – but I don’t always agree with the conclusions: it could be game-state related (you may pass more or less depending on whether you are leading, drawing or losing), or many other things (including a lack of energy due to injuries and a lack of preseason, plus the loss of Virgil van Dijk’s pace-injecting long passes). For instance, if your best dribbler is out, your team may suddenly dribble less – it’s not that you can tell lesser dribblers to just go out and dribble like an elite dribbler.

Liverpool had games with over 900 passes last season (and won), and as we showed last week on the site, Thiago is miles ahead of anyone else in the Premier League for “progressive passes”. But so many things have gone wrong this season, which will be covered in this hive-mind piece. Even so, this Thiago graphic by Dutch data visualiser Kees van Hemmen is well worth another outing:

It’s also worth remembering how many of the Reds’ best pressers are not available right now. To ask for more energy is one thing (even when players are fatigued), but some vital pressers are injured, or have been injured for long parts of this season, as shown via this Anfield Index: Under Pressure tweet:

Set-Pieces

Paul Tomkins: No one else seems be picking up on how Liverpool have gone from elite to toothless at set-pieces due to the injuries to all the tall players. To focus only on van Dijk is wrong for a number of reasons, but obviously he’s a key player for the Reds in both boxes, and in starting moves. Indeed, his beautiful, defence-turning long-range passing has been sorely missed.

He also is worthy of a mention in terms of leadership effects by Dan Abrahams [covered in a post that appears later in this piece], but there are other players too, whose absence is costly.

There are so many factors, and it’s hard for simplifying soundbites on what’s wrong.

This (below) was a graph I created before the Leicester game, which saw another 12 corners – often well-delivered – easily defended.

I first introduced this graph on the TTT Substack Newsletter (click on the link to sign up). Remember, this is not the goals the tall duo score, but how many more goals the team scores from set-pieces (half of which the tallest duo directly contribute to, the other half they take up the time and energies of the opposition’s best markers to leave others free).

I’ve shown that we’ve scored one set-piece goal in 16 games without the Reds’ biggest two centre-backs, having averaged a 1-in-3 when both were in the team, and 1-in-4 when it was just Matip and no van Dijk. (Since I created the graph, it’s now one set-piece goal in 18 games without both van Dijk and Matip – pro rata, that’s the equivalent of just two set-piece league goals per season, when last season the Reds scored twenty. The effect on the goals column is the same as replacing Mo Salah with an ageing Rickie Lambert or a disinterested Mario Balotelli.)

In addition, the Reds’ strikers had a collective drought for the first time since they were formed as a trio, and sooner or later that had to happen. While they missed a ton of chances, at the other end teams took their chances, in contrast to last winter, when Liverpool got lucky as the opposition squandered chance after change in December and January (but where the psychology of the team was different, and it probably made opponents more nervous, in contrast to now, where the same has applied to Liverpool).

I’ve been very critical of a lot of Liverpool’s finishing and final passes in 2021, but I also don’t blame the manager, and don’t really blame the players most of the time, as these things come and go, and if you’re low on confidence you’ll tend to miss chances, or mess-up crossing and final passes.

Andy Robertson has been very poor on the ball, but as Jamie Carragher showed on Sky’s Monday Night Football, he’s played 95% of all PL minutes since the summer of 2018. Trent Alexander-Arnold hasn’t been as effective, and he’s been both ill and injured this season. To use 17 different centre-back partnerships, and 13 in the Premier League in just 24 games, must be some kind of world record.

So it’s not just players who are back fit – Alex Oxlade-Chamblerlain has been terribly off-form, as he has the opposite problem of not playing for six months and then needing to find his touch, and being off the pace of the games (and now he has more games in his legs, he’s coming off the back of those rusty showings that haven’t helped him). If the team is riding the crest of the wave you can more easily just jump onboard.

The finishing in general had a really weird run (which is continuing in open play in the league at Anfield), as TTT alumnus Dan Kennett shared a few weeks ago:

The more chances missed by a team that is under serious pressure (either to win things or to escape relegation), the greater the pressure grows, in a negative feedback loop. Missing chances breeds anxiety, which leads to snatching at chances. In addition, what headed set-piece attempts the Reds have had have often been quite tame, in part because they have been from smaller players battling to get an effort in when up against bigger, stronger players.

Injuries

Chris Rowland: First, some figures:

Nineteen (must resist the Paul Hardcastle reference) different Liverpool players have been injured this season. Nine were missing through injury at Leicester, and Milner limped off after 17 minutes with a hamstring injury to bring it to double figures. Afterwards, James Maddison made the point that Leicester had injuries too. They had – just not as many, and not all in the same positions. The extent of the two sides’ injury situations was not comparable.

In the match at Leicester on February 13th, Liverpool fielded their 17th different centre-back combination of the season. In a total of 34 games in all competitions.

Andrew Beasley has shown that the greater the number of players out injured, the less chance there is that Liverpool will win, to an uncanny correlation, based on Klopp’s career at LFC since 2016.

He also showed that, as things stand, the longest run of any centre-back pairing this season is … 2.5 games! “Phillips and Henderson played the second half against Spurs, then the full matches against West Ham and Brighton. The longest run of starts is three, for Gomez and Fabinho. But Fab had to come off after 30 minutes of the third game.” If Henderson and Kabak play together beyond half-time at the weekend, they become the longest consecutive partnership for the season.

First, just look at the injuries (which this season are double any of Klopp’s previous seasons), and then, with the points scale inverted to show “good” vs “bad”, how they have affected the Reds’ form.

Now, with the rolling form overlaid:

(Again, the blue line is inverted, so that “good” is lower, and “bad” is higher.)

Jürgen Klopp in his Leipzig news conference, covered the stark reality:

“All the weeks and months you can see easily it is a mix of different things that happened. Now is not the time to explain,” he said.

“Injuries have played part in it, you can’t ignore them, it changed everything.

“Its like building a house, if the foundations are not right things are a bit shaky.

“We cannot change things but we will work on it.”

This was also Andrew’s graphic from a few weeks ago, that gives a sense, visually, of how great the disruption has been. Since then, injuries fell to five one week, then ten more recently, before dipping back to seven for the Leipzig game.

RDucker: Some points from a sports psychologist on the impact on injuries on other players: (from The Athletic)

“Dan Abrahams is a golfer-turned-sports psychologist, who has previously worked for Bournemouth and the England rugby union team as well as with players at West Ham, Fulham and Derby County.”

“Injuries to key players create a different narrative across an organisation,” Abrahams says.

“It makes a difference to the emotional temperature in a dressing room and can result in anxiety. There are people who are game-changers with their mere presence. Their presence alone can lead to a release of testosterone in (other) players’ bodies and the adrenaline to perform.

“It’s that feeling of looking across, seeing someone like Van Dijk and knowing he’s going to help you. If you’re a defender who has played next to another defender hundreds of times before, you have that understanding about what they’re going to do, where they’re going to be. That’s going to make a difference to your perception action. Without someone like that, confidence and understanding reduces and executing game plans becomes harder.”

More Injuries Were Inevitable

It seems that any team can expect a 25% increase in injuries when playing so many games. Sometimes a team may have a 15% increase, other times it may be 40%. The average is 25%.

So, Liverpool already had several out injured when going into this recent phase, which is just another such run of games for the Reds in 2020/21. The remaining fit players, with less scope for rotation, are at an even greater risk than if everyone was fit to start with.

Research conducted by artificial intelligence platform Zone7, which specialises in injury risk forecasting and works with 35 professional football teams worldwide, shows that playing eight matches in a 30-day period increases the incidence of injury by 25% when compared with playing four to five matches in the same timeframe.

And remember, Liverpool have had seven serious ligament injuries, three of which have ended seasons and another three of which were at least three-months out – all six of those most serious ones to senior players – and that is not down to bad preparation or bad physios; it’s pure bad luck, especially if it was the result of a shocking foul.

Finally on injuries, this is worth repeating, relating to how it’s not losing your first-choice that really hits hard, it’s losing the 2nd and 3rd choice players as well:

Lubo:

“A point on the injuries to Gomez and Matip on top of that of Virgil. Ryan O’Hanlon writes an email newsletter and in his latest one, on Liverpool (he is a fan), he mentioned a study of NFL teams that looked at defenses and found out that it’s not an injury to you your first-stringer (top defender) that kills you, it’s the injury to the second and third backs ups that sink you, as that means you now have to play your fourth and fifth options and those are just never that good. Had Gomez and Matip stayed fit and healthy, and allowed us to play Fab and Hendo in midfield more often, it would be a completely different story. Alas. Here is a link to the study, btw, though it is paywalled.

Enforced Rookie Minutes – What Has “Killed” Liverpool

Paul Tomkins: While I have touched on the issue before (along with factors like the massive loss of aerial ability due to injuries), I thought it was worth looking in more depth at how many minutes have been played by “complete rookies” in the Premier League for Liverpool this season.

I defined a “complete rookie” as anyone under 23 who had never played a top-level game before, or who had previously played fewer than 600 minutes in the Premier League (or equivalent level in the other major leagues) and the Champions League combined, going into 2020/21.

As it turned out, I could have set the “rookie bar” anywhere between 300 and 900 minutes played prior to 2020/21 and still got exactly the same results. A lot of young players at rival clubs had played more than 900 minutes prior to this season; and across the top six (minus West Ham) there were eight rookies with less than 300 minutes. Five of those eight were Liverpool players.

I didn’t include domestic cups, as so many players get minutes in those competitions, but the standard of opposition faced can range from a top Premier League side to non-league opposition. Even the Championship and League One clubs rest players for the FA Cup and League Cup. And as Liverpool have had no real domestic cup runs in years, it’s not exactly been a chance to play the kids very often (unlike Man City and their regular easier fixtures that offer them little trouble, and are ideal for some rotation and some rookie-blooding).

To play in the Premier League or Champions League, unless in dead rubbers, is a mark of confidence from the manager, or a situation where no one else has been available.

In 2019/20, Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City and Leicester all had mixed seasons. Many of those clubs – the ones who are Liverpool’s closest rivals in the table right now (assuming West Ham will fall away) – played a lot of younger players last season. By contrast, this season they’ve played hardly any rookies, with most of last season’s rookies now considered experienced enough to qualify as senior players.

Frank Lampard, with a club transfer ban, was famously given leeway to blood some youngsters, and Manchester United had fielded Mason Greenwood and Brandon Williams for almost 4,000 minutes of football prior to this season. Someone like Mason Mount played over 3,300 minutes for Chelsea in the two major competitions last season, and at 22, he’s clearly not even contention for inclusion as a rookie, as he seems to start no matter who else is fit. Phil Foden is moving to the level of first-choice, after nearly 2,000 minutes in a City shirt (in the major competitions) up to August 2020.

By contrast, the five rookies Liverpool have relied on for almost 2,000 Premier League minutes this season had just 353 minutes combined in the Premier League and Champions League in their careers up to August 2020. The graph below is another staggering example of what has beyond Klopp’s control. (You could argue that the club should have had an even bigger squad – despite the wage bill already being maxed out – but with 6-12 players out injured for most of the season, it’s less about squad depth and more about going beyond the usual limits of a squad, and raiding the U23 team.)

Now, you could rightly point out that Curtis Jones is playing better than a mere rookie, and you’d be right. But if the fit midfield pool (which wasn’t also covering for centre-back injuries) had included Jordan Henderson, Fabinho, Gini Wijnaldum, Thiago and Naby Keita, would Jones have 884 Premier League minutes this season? No way. He’d probably have 200 at most.

Equally, if Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain hadn’t returned so rusty after six months out, and Thiago hadn’t missed several months after the second serious and season-changing assault at Goodison Park, Jones would have had fewer chances to shine, and even now, is still perhaps between 5th-9th choice. (I’ve discussed in comments on the site this week what a great player Jones is, and his incredible potential. But he’s still learning.)

He could now arguably keep James Milner (based on age, depending on the midfield role) and Oxlade-Chamberlain (based on form) out the side, but not Henderson, Fabinho, Wijnaldum, Thiago or Keita, if all were fit, sharp and available for the midfield. He might usurp Keita if Keita can’t get back to being fit, but at best, he will remain below at least four others for the three starting midfield berths.

Liverpool, and Jones, have gained from almost 900 minutes of league action, but as good as he can be, he’s had costly moments and some poor games, because he’s just turned 20 and this is his first proper season. What he’s doing for most of this season for a lad who was just 19 when it started has been superb, within the context of a rookie; but despite his flaws that have at times cost points, this is a transitional season for him: his first as a proper first-team contender. This is a teething stage, for him and the team.

He’s learning on the job, and learning with some speed. But players like Mason Mount, Phil Foden, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Mason Greenwood had each played thousands of Premier League and Champions League minutes prior to this season; Jones had played a paltry 122 minutes, or less than two games’ worth of time on the pitch.

Neco Williams probably wouldn’t have got a single minute (perhaps bar a few late-in-game introductions) if Trent Alexander-Arnold had been fit all season, and Caoimhin Kelleher, as good as he’s been, only played because Alisson was injured and Adrian – the no.2 at the start of the season – looked shaky. Without doubt, neither Rhys Williams nor Nat Phillips would have played a single minute had Liverpool’s first four centre-backs not all been injured, three of them seriously. Both have had very good games, and clumsy games. That’s often what happens.

I created the following chart just to show why I’m not including certain players (in green) as rookies, and the contrast with those, in red, who are clearly very inexperienced. Liverpool have relied on five rookies this season in the league; combined, the other four clubs have used just three (and Liam Delap of City literally just got 39 minutes in one game this season).

And although he’s only 20, I’m not including Ozan Kabak as a rookie, after two seasons in the German top flight (over 3,000 minutes played in the Bundesliga, in addition to playing 360 minutes in the Champions League with Galatasaray and 1,000+ minutes in the Turkish Super Lig, and seven full caps for Turkey), although he’s obviously in an unenviable position of having to step straight into an unsettled defence – in a new league – within a week of his arrival; and the lack of understanding with teammates that contributed to the Reds losing at Leicester.

(The second goal came about – and listed officially as a Kabak error – because he would probably not have been used to a sweeper-keeper clearing up so far out of his box, and maybe didn’t hear the call, or if he did, quite believe what he was hearing; these are issues that a settled defence do not have to deal with, as everyone knows each other’s game. It’s not just about shouting “keeper’s ball”, but appreciating that the keeper may even be on his way in the first place. Equally, Alisson may have just left someone like van Dijk to clear the ball, but perhaps didn’t trust the new guy. Either way, it was an issue of inexperience within the defence, if not Kabak’s own personal experience as a footballer. He’s also playing alongside a player with about half a dozen games as a centre-back in his career.)

Indeed, as I wrote in both my recent books, team understanding – due to making fewer new signings (if you can get by with the players you have, because you’ve already shaped the ideal team and squad) – often actually increases team performance.

Liverpool didn’t sign a single first-team player last season, and won the league; and the only rookie minutes were handed out after the title was won. Adding more than one new player to a team is often counterproductive in the short term. Now, the Reds are already at almost 2,000 minutes of rookie minutes; from zero when it mattered, to 1,852 and counting. Add the 1,400+ league minutes of new signings, and it’s a mixture of inexperienced players and a lack of team cohesion.

The problem is that obviously at some point you have to introduce new players, or the team gets old and stale – but last season Liverpool were at a sweet spot, relying on previous signings who had settled in and were now all at a perfect age. There was no injury crisis; no relying on the kids. Even now, no one is “melting” – they’ve just suffered serious ligament damage from bad luck.

The bonus is that the minutes played by Jones and any of the other kids, including 20-year-old Kabak if he is retained, all count towards an expected improvement next season. Last season, Liverpool’s rivals were either able to (as they were out of contention for the league) or forced to play the kids. Now those kids are a year older, but not just a bit bigger and wiser, but now more experienced.

While Liverpool never intended this to be a transitional season – the age of the XI and the subs was still ideal – injuries have enforced one.

The good news is that, all being well, three of the world’s best centre-backs will be fit again next season (even if Matip won’t be fit all season). Diogo Jota will be back in the equation before then, and Thiago will be that bit more settled, and in addition to increasing his fitness and team understanding, will perhaps have learned to avoid sliding tackles. And then, players like Jones and Kabak may force their way into the team (or become go-to bench-men), rather than being used because of injuries to the main men.

Injuries Have Removed Goal Threat

Paul Tomkins: as well as losing a huge cutting edge at set-pieces – going from prolific to toothless – Liverpool have also lost at least three players who can score goals and add something in the final third.

The midfield is more goal-shy this season, and while the team was never built to rely on them for goals, the best goalscoring midfielders have missed most of the season.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is a pro-rata double-figures midfielder goalscorer from open play (i.e. if he played all the minutes, he would be in double figures; instead, despite not playing every game, he got a healthy eight last season).

Indeed, prior to this season – when he has returned looking rusty and then low on confidence – he had played the equivalent of 39 full matches in the league and the Champions League for the Reds, and in those games, scored 12 open-play goals and made nine assists. (He’s also played in the domestic cups and scored goals.) Obviously he missed a year with serious injury, and then half of this season. He’s one of those players whose touch vanishes when out of form.

Naby Keita is another goalscoring and creative player. Virgil van Dijk adds five a season from centre-back, and Matip adds two or three, as well as the aforementioned effect they have on set-pieces in general.

And Diogo Jota has played 862 minutes in the two main competitions for Liverpool and scored nine goals, at a rate of one every 96 minutes. In other words, he’s arguably the most prolific minutes-based striker in the country this season. That’s far more prolific than Mo Salah on a per-90 minutes basis, and it’s without taking penalties.

He has scored goals against good teams (Atalanta, Arsenal, Leicester), and/or at important times in matches. If you look at the 22 players in the Premier League to have scored six or more goals (he has only five, so just misses the list of 22 published on the BBC), then the most prolific is Mo Salah, with a goal every 113 minutes (Ilkay Gündogan, out of nowhere, ranks 2nd of Jamie Vardy).

Obviously Salah also has half a dozen penalties, and while he takes them at an elite scoring rate, they bump up his figures in a way that they do not for Liverpool’s other strikers (who, in fairness, would probably miss a few).

Sadio Mané has often been electric this season, but he has scored a league goal only once every 255 minutes. Roberto Firmino has never been a rampant scorer, but he appears on the 22 top Premier League scorer list, albeit ranked 21st on minutes per goal (but ranks a healthier 11th from those players when it comes to just assists). So a fully sharp and in-form Ox has been missed, as someone who can take the ball forwards at pace and lash in a shot from 20 yards.

When asking for a few words on Oxlade-Chamberlain, Andrew Beasley supplied this regarding the Reds’ recruit from Arsenal:

“Re Oxlade-Chamberlain – the main loss has been his scoring from distance. Liverpool have only scored three goals from outside the box in league and Europe this season, and two of them were the 4th and 7th in the 7-0 at Palace. Only Gini Wijnaldum (second in 4-0) vs Wolves could be described as even vaguely important really. But Ox scored two of LFC’s three long-range goals in the Champions League last season (both at Genk), and one in the league too (the opener vs Southampton), plus one in the League Cup vs Arsenal if memory serves. Only Trent Alexander-Arnold scored as many in the two main comps, and his were all from free-kick situations. Ox was the open play long range king!”

I have always said that in the age of xG and sensible shooting – working the best positions, for the best chance of scoring – the long-range shot has to remain in the armoury; just as I say that players who love to cut inside must also go outside at least one in four times, even if they lose the ball, because it puts doubt in the defenders’ minds and then it makes cutting inside (the next time) a bit easier. You should never become predictable, and for a while, Mo Salah was becoming far too predictable – but ever since he scored his first goal of 2021 with his right foot at Old Trafford, he’s looked a far more balanced attacking player, and has scored six mostly excellent goals this calendar year.

Similarly, the long shot, while going out of fashion, remains a speciality. As Andrew says, someone like Oxlade-Chamberlain is perhaps the most potent player for this, and you can include his stunning goals against Manchester City in his first season. (Equally, City can score goals from outside the box, as well as walking it into the net.)

Unless it’s someone like Steven Gerrard, then by long-range I mean 20-25-yards, not 35. Teams need to know that you will at least try some shots, or defenders need not throw themselves into blocks. It’s handy against low-block teams, as the goalkeeper can be unsighted, and it can lead to spills, deflected goals, deflected assists (Virgil van Dijk against Everton when Origi scored in a famous Anfield derby), and to countless corners – albeit Liverpool still can’t do too much with them without all four outfield players who are taller than 6’1″.

The long shot, as Villa showed against Liverpool, can be a great provider of deflected goals. Indeed, Liverpool have scored just two deflected league goals in the past 18 months. Yet in the game against Villa, in that Black Swan of all Black Swan games, the Reds conceded three (and each was a massive deflection, and each went just inside the post or top corner).

The problem comes when teams resort to aimless long-shots in desperation, especially from players who never score goals. (When Dejan Lovren or Nathaniel Clyne would hit one from 40 yards I lose the will to live.)

Another issue is that Curtis Jones, at 20, has yet to chip in this season in the way that I feel he can. At the same age, after 50 games, Gerrard had scored just one solitary goal (versus Sheffield Wednesday), that was admittedly so good that you thought he’d become a goalscoring midfielder (and he did, eventually). Jones has a very healthy six goals in just 40 games, and half were against some good teams (Ajax, Everton and Aston Villa), but has only one in the league so far in his career. In a couple of years, that should start to have radically changed. Goalscoring often goes up a gear or two for players between the ages of 21 and 23.

While clearly injury prone, Naby Keita has started six league games this season. The Reds won five and lost the other (one of Adrian’s nightmares), to average 2.5 points per game, way above the figure in games where he didn’t start. The Reds never scored fewer than two goals in those games he started – which were against Leeds, Chelsea, Arsenal, Aston Villa, Leicester and Crystal Palace – and averaged almost four goals per game. Unlike in previous seasons he didn’t score or assist, but when he’s on a football pitch, things happen. When fit he’s a special talent, even if not everyone can see it.

While Liverpool cannot bank on Keita’s fitness, his absences – even to not have him as an option – are a kind of hamstringing of the team. While it may be that he just happened to start those six games this season when the team was on top form (in the opposite way to Thiago only returning to the team after months out after the Reds had already gone 150 minutes without a goal against West Brom and Newcastle), the fact that Liverpool have consistently done better when Keita is available remains a constant.

Andrew Beasley wrote this piece for TTT subscribers at the start of the season, about how much of an impact Keita has; although there is the couched optimism that the Guinean might have overcome his injury woes. (But at some point he still might – players can overcome such issues if the problem can be identified and rectified, even if not all players will.

At Keita’s age, İlkay Gündoğan had missed major tournaments with injuries and had never played more than 28 league games in seven seasons in the Bundesliga and one in the Premier League, where he only featured 10 times in his first season with City. Now he manages 50+ appearances a season in all competitions (although has just got injured again, when the league’s 2nd-top scorer). Indeed, Steven Gerrard had a lot of injury problems earlier in his career, as did Ryan Giggs. Yet those two had long and illustrious careers. So never write a player off, even if there are no miracle cures.)

I’ll quote a few bits from Andrew’s Keita article, but the whole piece is a strong argument for why, even now, we should not give up on Keita – but instead, find a way to figure out, if possible, how to keep him fit.

It can’t be an accident that Liverpool’s number eight performs well in so many different aspects of the game, not least as we know for a fact that the club’s head of research, Ian Graham, was hugely impressed by his numbers:

“What scouts saw when they watched Keita was a versatile midfielder. What Graham saw on his laptop was a phenomenon.”

It therefore seems worth pulling details from a host of recent articles and updating the figures to include the complete 2019/20 season to see what they tell us about Keïta. And if nothing else, if a central midfielder matches up pretty well to Kevin De Bruyne over the last two years [based on a data “radar”], then they must be on the right track.

… So what have we learned here? The data shows us that Naby Keïta is (somewhat on the sly) one of the key creative players in Klopp’s Liverpool team, be that teeing up a teammate with the final pass or putting someone else through to play the shot assist.

The former RB Leipzig man is also among the elite in Europe for carrying the ball around the pitch when he has it, and for attempting to win at back when he doesn’t. The net result? Liverpool’s record is better with him on the pitch than when he is absent.

[PT: and this obviously continues to be true this season.]

Defensive Errors

Andrew Beasley:

I’ve been thinking about the point I made above about defensive errors so I’ve done a little research.

Last season, Liverpool made 25. As they’ve made 12 so far in 2020/21, their rate per game has actually improved ever so slightly.

But only five led to a goal last season, whereas seven have this time around, so straight away there’s a bit more of a problem. Like anything in football, errors are not all equal – the one today was only ever going to end in a goal, rather than a shot, after all. Some are inevitably easier to get away with than others.

And look at the five which resulted in a goal last season, the scoreline in Liverpool’s favour at the time of the error, and the final result:

Southampton A, Adrián: 2-0 at the time, ended 2-1.
Brighton H, Adrián: 2-0, 2-1.
Watford A, Alexander-Arnold: 0-2, 0-3.
Arsenal A, van Dijk: 1-0, 1-2.
Arsenal A, Alisson: 1-1, 1-2.

38 matches played and only one game where a defensive error by Liverpool made any difference to the actual outcome. Even then, it occurred after the Reds had been confirmed as champions.

Now look at this season:

Leeds H, van Dijk: 2-1, 4-3
Arsenal H, Robertson: 0-0, 3-1
Aston Villa A, Adrián: 0-0, 2-7
Southampton A, Alexander-Arnold: 0-0, 0-1
Manchester City H, Alisson: 1-1, 1-4
Manchester City H, Alisson: 1-2, 1-4
Leicester City A, Kabak: 1-1, 1-3

Liverpool have lost six games so far this season, and they’ve gone behind to an error in four of those matches. Another instance was a penalty to Burnley (not an error in Opta terms, but clearly a defensive mistake), leaving the recent Brighton game, and that goal saw a failed clearance hit an attacker who knew very little about it.

It’s yet another issue this season where the small margins have absolutely gone against Liverpool. And when they’re on their 17th central defensive partnership of the season and the first choice goalkeeper has clearly got a few mental gremlins, I’m not sure what they can do about it. It will pass naturally, but it’s all part of the tailspin.

Top of the injuries table at present? Ouch.

Bottom of the VAR overturns table? Ugh.

Top of the table for errors leading to goals? Aha.

What an absolute clusterfuck. We were well in the game against City last weekend and unquestionably dominant here and then in the space of a couple of minutes one or two of the above factors have done for us in both matches.

We have unquestionably shot ourselves in the foot with the errors a few times recently – Southampton winner, go-behind goals to City and Leicester – and the Burnley penalty isn’t included in errors but proved costly too. But even a reasonable shake of luck, not even heavily in our favour, just our fair share and we’re having a completely different season.

And while our record for the season for converting clear-cut chances is pretty good, we’ve missed another two from two today. I honestly don’t believe there’s anything massively wrong with the team (though confidence is presumably shot to pieces right now) but all these things are adding to the drip, drip, drip of intolerable pressure. This is intolerable, Junior…

Defence Vs Attack

Daniel Rhodes: the three charts below showcase the Reds’ declining attacking prowess as the season unfolded (and several players remain out injured), and how the defensive side of the Reds’ game only really dipped – the opposition’s big chances rising again – since all of the centre-backs got injured, after a more stable period in January.

Once the Reds stopped scoring goals and entered that several-game drought, the pressure was applied to the defence; and by then it was lacking van Dijk, Gomez, Matip and even Fabinho.

Officiating: Refs and VAR

Chris Rowland: Ah, the elephant in the room. We need to talk about Kevin (Friend). And Anthony Taylor. And Martin, Andre, Mike, Jon, Lee, Paul and co.

Let’s be clear – there have always been complaints about refereeing. But let’s be equally clear – what has happened this season has been on an entirely different level to the usual carping about officiating fortune.

Paul Tomkins: It’s never easy arguing that you’re being screwed by the refs (and the VAR) but there’s a shit-ton of neutral data that suggests that, this year at least, the Reds are being jolly-well rogered.

Chris Rowland: This is a subject that’s so complex and, this season at least, full of so many contentious and downright insane decisions, we will be covering it separately, in great depth, next week, including subscriber Vinnylfc‘s gargantuan effort in trawling through all this season’s TTT match threads (league games only, up to and including Leicester away on February 13th) to produce a deep, game-by-game dive into Liverpool’s troubled relationship with refs, screens and some folk concocting strange artificial lines on the pitch in the back of a van somewhere near Stockley Park.

For now, here are a few bits of information on where we are this season:

– the official stats on VAR overturns this season; anyone who calls Liverpool LiVARpool after this is officially and just plain wrong!

– Planet Football’s version of the latest VAR figures.

– A list of 16 refereeing decisions that went against Liverpool this season up till Jan 6th; there have been plenty more since.

A video looking at various poor decisions Liverpool have had. It isn’t comprehensive, and we know other teams have had some shocking decisions this season too – but the totality of evidence suggests the Reds have had the worst of it, bar far. Even compared only against Liverpool’s previous seasons, it’s been a radical outlier. Often these decisions have been at vital points in matches: when the scores were close, and not when either Liverpool or the opposition were already well ahead.

Paul Tomkins: Plus, Liverpool have won a healthy six penalties this season, albeit plenty of other clubs have won more in a season where the numbers have increased across the board; but a scarcely believable eight have been given against Klopp’s men. Half of these were stonewallers, but the other half were iffy at best. Thankfully some have been missed, but it’s still cost the Reds points, and is already 8x the number conceded in the league last season. Perhaps Liverpool got lucky in conceding just one in 2019/20, although the first-choice defenders obviously defended better than the stand-ins this season. Even so, to concede one league penalty every three games is bonkers.

Until Next Week…

For now we’ll end there, and if we think of any other issues we may update the piece.

But now we’ll go away and flesh out the analysis of the officiating madness that has been 2020/21…

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