A Grand Don't Come For Free

1,000 not out

December 2004. Liverpool are seventh in the table, four points outside the top four but with a game in hand, and they’re off to Villa Park. The home side are one point and one place above them, making this, Rafael Benitez’ 25th match in charge of the club, an important fixture.

After about a quarter of an hour, the Reds - in a yellow away kit - got a free-kick. Steven Gerrard crossed the ball into the box, Jamie Carragher headed it back across goal to Harry Kewell, who headed it into the net. Nolberto Solano later equalised from a free-kick, leaving Liverpool to settle for a point.

This match came a week after Neil Mellor had scored an injury time winner to defeat defending champions Arsenal, three days after a callow Liverpool side had knocked Tottenham out of the League Cup at White Hart Lane. It feels like a really long time ago, doesn’t it? So why am I writing about this seemingly non-descript and largely forgotten 1-1 draw from approaching two decades ago?

Because Kewell’s goal was the first of the 1,000 scored by the club prior to the appointment of Jürgen Klopp, and last week, his Liverpool netted for the thousandth time.

This newsletter has been dormant for a long time. A statto can not let a landmark like this pass without sharing a few facts and figures though.

The 1,0000th goal was scored in Prague by Darwin Núñez, struck from 28 yards out. From the available data (which is league and Europe since summer 2017), it just missed out on a place in the top 10 for distance.

Oh, look, Mohamed Salah is at the top of the chart. Get used to it.

It’s fair to say Peter Vindahl Jensen didn’t have a great game for Sparta Prague last Thursday. But in fairness to the Dane, he won’t have faced teams as good as Klopp’s Liverpool very often.

They have now scored five-or-more goals in 34 matches, almost half as often as they’ve failed to score at all (70 matches). The Sparta stopper will likely concede a few at Anfield too, but he won’t get close to the top of the chart for the most frequently beaten opposition ‘keepers for Klopp’s 1,000 goals.

Ederson moved up the list on Sunday, it’s just a shame he or Stefan Ortega didn’t rise further. Imagine if Joe Gomez had scored the winner, it’d be Klopp’s crowning achievement.

He’d have become the 62nd player to score a goal for Jürgen’s Reds, from the 119 men who’ve made an appearance. You can’t even rule out goalkeepers from the potential scorers, as Alisson Becker so memorably demonstrated. Here’s the data for the 1,000 goals.

By scoring a second in Prague, Núñez drew level with Own Goals in the Klopp goals chart, a landmark moment for any Liverpool player. You’ll have seen above that Salah is the leading player for minutes played, goals, assists and probably shirt removals too.

Given his fitness record and sublime ability, it’s no surprise the Egyptian king is so dominant. Yet we have to remember that Liverpool had scored 179 goals for their current manager before Salah had even arrived. This means the former Roma man directly contributed to 35 per of the Reds’ next 821 by either scoring or assisting, never mind others where he played a less obviously acknowledged role.

His combination work with Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mané will never be forgotten. Liverpool might have had better forwards in the past or maybe in the future, but it’s tough to imagine a better trio who aligned at the same time, and for five glorious years.

To highlight their combinations, here’s a look at the best assist-scorer link ups. There are some duos with more that aren’t pictured - though none that have generated more than four goals - but these are the 17 players with 10+ assists and the 16 men who have scored at least 16 times. The combinations here account for almost two thirds of the assisted goals.

With five or six years of Salah time, Núñez could break the previous high watermarks, especially if his finishing rose to even average level. But even if by some miracle that happens, it won’t occur on Klopp’s watch.

If we’re lucky we might see the German celebrate another 40 or 50 Reds goals, some with a clenched fist, others by hugging Pep Lijnders or a substitute, maybe there’ll even be one marked with anger towards Anfield’s main stand. You’d love to see him giving it some to a fourth official one more time, admit it.

Even if his side fails to score score another goal, Klopp’s version of Liverpool will still have a better goals-game-record than all but two of his predecessors, and all of those since Queen Victoria was on the throne. Thanks for the memories, Jürgen.