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It feels strange to write this the morning after a 4-3 win, but we need to talk about opportunity creation and Liverpool’s conversion rate. Or, to put it more succinctly, the cruelty of the team. Or, I suppose, the lack from a ruthless streak that has begun to permeate the team’s three forwards: Mo Salah, Sadio Mané and, most importantly, Roberto Firmino.
Liverpool finished the victory over Leeds with 3.15 goals expected to 0.27. However, anyone who has seen the game will understand that it is a kind of calculation of the algorithm.
Jurgen Klopp’s team did smash Marcelo Bielsa’s carefully choreographed setup. With wave after wave of attack, Liverpool found all kinds of spaces. Salah, in particular, was in his prime: using his speed, skill and cunning to unnerve Leeds’ backline and tear apart the core elements of Bielsa’s defensive structure.
But there could have been more. There should have been more.
Liverpool needed two penalties and a wonderfully worked set piece to reach three of their goals. Salah’s outstanding individual effort made him a four – a shot, by the way, which came with an xG of 0.8, according to Understat.
It’s not that Liverpool didn’t create chances, they did. But they were ineffective with the ball in the last third after hitting the initial line of the press.
This has long been the way with Klopp’s side. Is not that much he the possibility that it is a problem, although often there is also a coincidence there, is the pass before the pass before the pass; its excellent carved openings and then without pulling the trigger. It is Roberto Firmino trying to balance the time when one against one passes and loses the pass. It’s about Salah and Mane playing with the defenders and playing the most impressive game of staying away, but without creating a real opportunity at the end of it all.
There is a casual aura to all of this. Hey , don’t worry, another chance will come.
Leeds was there for the transition. Liverpool got the ball back 44 times in the opponent’s half. For comparison, Leeds, famous for their creative pressing feats, pinched the ball just 11 times in the Liverpool half.
Bielsa sat his centrals deep but he still played with a progressive and aggressive blocking in midfield. There was too much ground for the national team midfielder to cover, particularly with a center-back who marked Firmino to the midline. When play was interrupted or the ball was given away, as was often the case, there was a huge void that Liverpool could exploit.
And explode that they did. Klopp’s team finished the match with 22 shots, but only six of them were on target. Worse still: of the 17 takes they had inside In the area (including two penalties!), Only five hit home, a measly 29 percent.
What’s interesting, though, isn’t so much that those shots were bad, that they lacked a ruthless streak. Is that the side had to settle for shots from difficult positions because that pass before the pass before the pass was a beating.
Both problems infected the team last season, most notably in the Champions League loss to Atlético, and it was even more pronounced after the lockout. And we saw him back in the Community Shield against Arsenal. Firmino, despite his excellence in preparation, was not clinical enough in the face of goal. And Salah and Mané, with all their efficiency in the face of goal, were the culprits of bogging down the accumulation by exaggerating.
Leeds worked hard on Saturday. They ran after everything and adhered to the defensive principles that make their style so idiosyncratic. But there were chances that Liverpool kept them before Leeds’s own brilliant finish dragged them back into the game.
It is not a cause for panic, but it is something to continue to monitor. The next opportunity may not come; you have to take it now.
Salah, who is often guilty of needing a couple of lookouts before warming up, was his best ruthless on Saturday. That must be maintained throughout the season, and it needs Firmino and Mané to match. To maintain the challenges on multiple fronts this season, the front line will need to be more clinical.
What I’m reading …
The podium is back! Dan Morgan hands out prizes for Liverpool’s first competitive game of the season.
An interesting look at a problem that bubbles under the surface.
A great look at what Ferran Torres will bring to Man City. His arrival seems to have gone unnoticed: he should fit into the ‘wild card’ role that Leroy Sané played so well when Guardiola’s City were at their best.
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