Avoiding the Woodwork Would Work Better

Liverpool's final two shots in their recent draw with Chelsea hit the woodwork. Have they been unlucky this season?

Liverpool’s 1-1 draw with Chelsea didn’t feature much of anything. Well, there were plenty of boos, both during the match and at full time. But it left very little statistical footprint for analysis purposes.

The total of 14 shots was the second fewest in a Premier League match this season. The visitors mustered a solitary attempt after the 39th minute, with the Reds only producing two after the hour mark. Wake me up when it’s over.

If one were to be charitable, the pair of late Liverpool shots added an air of what might have been to a very mild performance as they both struck the woodwork. Dominik Szoboszlai hit the post from outside the box before he delivered a corner to Virgil van Dijk, who thundered a header off the crossbar (as you can see here).

It’s eminently possible to win despite playing badly, with the Reds coming very close to proving the point in this match. Only Manchester United (16), Bournemouth and Crystal Palace (both 13) have hit the woodwork more times than Liverpool in the 2025/26 Premier League, suggesting Arne Slot’s men have suffered with a degree of misfortune.

We have been here before. Kenny Dalglish’s Reds found the frame of the goal a ridiculous 24 times when finishing eighth in 2011/12. Tables were made that showed results if hitting the woodwork counted as a goal, with Liverpool up in fourth (if memory serves correctly). A sport of fine margins consumed them and spat them out that year.

Has the same happened this season? Or were both iterations of the Reds just bad teams, with errant finishing merely one facet of their poor performance?

Leaving aside that any game plays out differently if a shot goes in rather than hits the goal frame, Liverpool could argue they have been unlucky in 2025/26. Only two of their 12 woodwork rattlers occurred in matches that they won. Draws with Sunderland, Leeds, Fulham, Arsenal and Burnley could easily have turned in their favour, as could defeats to Manchester United and Wolves. In Europe, van Dijk struck the crossbar when the PSV match was 1-1; what might have been.

Fans only tend to remember post hits that rob their team. There have been 11 from opponents in the Reds’ league matches this term, including in their wins against Aston Villa, Brighton, Newcastle and Crystal Palace. Liverpool had lost four consecutive league games when Morgan Rogers struck the Kop end goalframe in just the fifth minute of the Villa match; what might have been.

Just as only three teams have hit the woodwork more than Liverpool, only three have seen their own goalframe struck more often. The average per team in 2025/26 is 9.6, so the posts and crossbar at each end have been a bigger factor in Reds games.

To establish what degree of luck there might have been, we must dig deeper. Understat provides the expected goal totals by shot outcome, which are fascinating.

Goals have the highest xG per shot rate, as you would expect (not least because they will include most penalties). The descent follows a logical progression; shots leading to Premier League goals in 2025/26 have been worth an average of 0.38 expected goals, with saved efforts (0.13) ahead of off target attempts (0.10) and those that are blocked (0.07).

The interesting aspect is that woodwork hits are worth 0.20 xG, illustrating that they are often really good chances. Liverpool’s pair against Chelsea were just 0.02 and 0.01 on the Understat model, with Opta only marginally above that for van Dijk’s header. Being centimetres from scoring doesn’t mean they were unduly unlucky to be denied.

The Reds’ xG average for their shots that have hit the woodwork (0.14) is below the going rate despite Szoboszlai’s missed penalty against Burnley being in the sample. Their only other Opta-defined big chance that struck the frame occurred in this kerfuffle at Wolves.

The mean xG score for opposition efforts has also been under par (0.15), albeit they have had five shots of at least average rate. The most recent examples highlight the statistical issue with how offside is handled these days though. Both Jørgen Strand Larsen and Bryan Mbeumo recently struck the Liverpool woodwork in moves that were offside but were allowed to continue and thus enter the data.

We can’t do anything about that, nor can we easily find out the game state in which other clubs hit the woodwork or had their own goalframe struck. One way in which we can attempt to assess luck is to look at what proportion of a team’s xG found the post or crossbar, eliminating the issue of some teams creating far more chances than others.

If the percentage is above league average (3.4 per cent), then a team can be deemed to be unlucky. They can also be viewed that way if under that proportion of opposition expected goals were kept out of the net by the white frame holding it up.

By this crude measure of kismet, West Ham, Fulham, Manchester City and Arsenal could be said to have been lucky at both ends, in descending order of combined fortune. Crystal Palace (by a wide margin), Aston Villa and Leeds have been unlucky in attack and defence.

Liverpool? There hasn’t been much that could be attributed to fortune at either end. The Reds have been a little lucky with regards woodwork in attack (and would be rather more so had Szoboszlai’s penalty been converted), with some of that welcome fortune disappearing in defence. Combining the two makes them the seventh most luck-neutral side of the 20.

Sorry, Arne. The woodwork hasn’t explained the downturn in results this season. It did have Liverpool supporters hitting the bar last weekend though.

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