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Liverpool’s campaign to win their twentieth league title started in an unconvincing way. If it weren’t for an 87-minute penalty from Mohamed Salah, the Reds probably would have lost two points to Leeds United at Anfield on Saturday.
It has left Kopites wondering if his team is in good shape to retain its Premier League crown. After all, several of the Reds’ performances since football resumed after the lockout have left something to be desired.
Losses at Manchester City (4-0) and Arsenal (2-1) have been accompanied by disappointing draws with Everton and Burnley. Liverpool’s previously hermetic defense conceded three goals to both Chelsea and Leeds, although both games were won, and two of the three league games in which Jurgen Klopp’s team failed to score last season occurred after the restart. .
In fact, these problems possibly date back to winter holidays. Liverpool signed for two weeks in February with a comfortable 4-0 win over Southampton, but came back with narrow wins over Norwich City, West Ham United and Bournemouth and a strong defeat at Vicarage Road against Watford before the pause button was pressed. in 2019 /. twenty.
So how concerned should Liverpool fans be? Before analyzing the underlying performances of the team, we need to recognize the context of the team situation.
When the Reds’ campaign resumed after their two-week hiatus, the title was nearly won. February 9 Five thirty eight it gave them a more than 99 percent chance of winning the league. Although they couldn’t have known it at the time, when the lockdown began, Liverpool had already racked up enough points to have finished ahead of the other 19 clubs in the division last season.
(Image: SHAUN BOTTERILL / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)
They would not have lacked motivation, but to win the league before any previous team in history, in terms of games remaining, if not the actual date, plus the psychological pressure of becoming the first Reds team to win the championship by three. . decades will have taken their toll.
There is also the factor of playing behind closed doors. While this is obviously the case for all teams, few clubs are as potent as Liverpool when in sync with their fans, particularly when Anfield is at its most raucous. The famous intensity of the team under Klopp will always be difficult to maintain without the support of the stands.
Even so, between winter break and the end of the 2019/20 season, Liverpool only had the fifth best record on the top flight, and in the underlying expected goals statistics it was sixth. While there are valid explanatory factors, the form cannot be simply turned on and off as needed.
There have been no serious problems in the attack. In their last 12 league games of last season, the Reds have scored 24 goals from FiveThirtyEight-rated opportunities worth about 21. With a solid defense behind them, a team averaging two goals per game will always win more. parties that it does not achieve.
Except the defense hasn’t been that strong, conceding 18 shooting goals worth 16 expected goals in that period. The match with Leeds was a new low on this front, with chances collectively valued at just 0.4 xG resulting in three goals conceded.
However, that’s far less worrisome than if Liverpool allowed plenty of high-quality chances against them. FiveThirtyEight’s database has over 2,700 matches in which the visiting team accumulated no more than 0.4 expected goals, but only 15 of them saw that team score at least three goals.
Even if he credits Marcelo Bielsa’s team with 0.6 xG, like did Statsbomb , there are still less than 50 examples of an away team that scored a trio of goals. It is not a result that that level of processing will produce too often.
And perhaps we are simply seeing the dreaded regression to the mean. In the 14 league games leading up to winter break, Liverpool conceded just six goals from 43 shots on target, for a save rate of 86 percent. In the 14 games since then, 42 attempts on goal have resulted in 21 goals.
This is not to completely blame Alisson Becker, although his mistake at Emirates Stadium resulted in one of the goals in that period. Virgil van Dijk, who usually makes one Opta-defined mistake leading to one goal per season, has also made two such mistakes in the last four league games.
There was also a penalty at Manchester City, the only one the Reds conceded in the league last season. It is clear that unusual events have occurred recently and should not happen too often in the future.
But it is equally imperative for Liverpool’s defense to toughen up to eliminate mistakes as quickly as possible, as they cannot expect to be rescued with three or four goals every week.
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