Football is a Random Joke Played on Liverpool

Liverpool's loss at Old Trafford was as frustrating as it was unsurprising. The Reds have been better than you think at some things this season, worse than you know at others.

Football is a deeply random sport. We see that almost every week. We certainly saw evidence during Liverpool’s 3-2 loss at Manchester United.

Arne Slot’s side were two goals down before they’d taken a shot or a third touch in the opposition penalty box. There seemed no way they’d score once, never mind twice, in response. No Ekitike, no Isak, no Salah, no chance.

Or so we thought. The Reds scored twice quicker in the second half than United had in the first. Dominik Szoboszlai had recorded just eight league shots after carrying the ball at least five metres this season, only half as many as Ryan Gravenberch.

Yet he was able to run from the Old Trafford centre circle into the box in close to a straight line before slotting the ball home. If nobody could have expected that, what followed was maybe even stranger.

The source for the second goal was something you probably didn’t realise has been a strength for Liverpool in 2025/26. Not just in relative terms either but against almost all of the other 95 teams in Europe’s big five leagues.

It being the season that it has been for the Reds, they also suffered with a couple of negative outliers in the match too. Here are some of the reasons why this has been such a strange campaign.

Positive: High Turnovers

Liverpool’s pressing has been criticised throughout the season. They have been far too easy to play through (though Josh Williams’ analysis of how they have chosen to defend is well worth a read).

Pressuring opponents can be used offensively as well as defensively. Szoboszlai was the Reds’ leading presser for volume at Old Trafford. Twelve of his 31 pressures saw Liverpool regain possession, with the former figure the highest by anybody in a Premier League game this weekend.

One of them forced Senne Lammens to cede possession cheaply to Alexis Mac Allister in the ‘D’ of the Red Devils’ box. In a heartbeat, Szoboszlai had become just the fourth different Liverpool player to score and assist away to United in the modern era. No Ekitike, no Isak, no Salah, no problem.

The Reds had recorded what Opta define as a high turnover: a possession that starts in open play beginning 40 metres or less from the opponent’s goal. It was their 10th of the league campaign that led to them scoring.

Only Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich have more such goals in the big leagues. Leverkusen are the sole side that has converted a higher proportion of their shots that have been fashioned in this way. Liverpool have been elite.

Whether by accident or design, this has proved unusually profitable for the 2025/26 Reds. Their 10 is only one fewer than Jürgen Klopp’s side mustered across his final two seasons. Now who’s heavy metal?

Negative: Goals Conceded from Outside The Box

The draw Liverpool recovered via a carry from a player who hadn’t been productive with them and pressing the goalkeeper in the penalty area slipped away. Kobbie Mainoo made the Reds pay for a weak Mac Allister clearance with a strike from just outside the box.

Slot’s men have been on the wrong end of nine league goals from further than 18 yards this season. It’s more than Burnley or Wolves, the two worst defences in the division (who are easier to create better chances against, of course).

It’s only one fewer long-range goal than Liverpool conceded in the four seasons between the summers of 2017 and 2021.

One of those was a Kop end corner that Burnley meatwalled into the net. Two were deflected efforts in a crazy 7-2 loss at Villa Park. Pure hits outside the box that found the Liverpool net were as rare as Jordan Henderson goals at the other end in this period.

Premier League goals conceded by Alisson (left), Mamardashvili (middle) and Woodman (right)

Some have been unlucky, like Nico González’s strike for Manchester City that deflected off Virgil van Dijk or Daniel Muñoz’s goal for Crystal Palace when Freddie Woodman was laying prone. They didn’t materially affect the result, though, which was not the case for the efforts by Chemsdine Talbi (which was deflected), André (as was this), Harrison Reed and Mainoo.

Liverpool used to encourage shots from distance, so confident were they in Alisson’s ability to save them. That would remain a better strategy than some of the half-hearted attempts we’ve seen at blocking shots this season.

Positive: Goals from Carries

Szoboszlai’s carry-powered goal was rare for him last weekend. It wasn’t actually that unusual for Liverpool.

It feels unusual. How can a team that has lost Luis Díaz and an effective version of Salah be proficient? Especially when Cody Gakpo is ranked 11th out of 15th for Premier League players converting shots following at least 20 carries this term?

The Reds have been boosted by some of their irregulars contributing. Rio Ngumoha and Andy Robertson have both scored following a dribble of at least five metres recently. Szoboszlai (with 22.2% shot conversion), Hugo Ekitike, Ryan Gravenberch (both 14.3%), Salah (13.0%) and Florian Wirtz (8.3%) have all been above league average (8.0%) too.

If Slot can produce this with mis-firing wingers, a couple of tasty summer acquisitions could go a long way to salvaging his Liverpool tenure.

Negative: Set Piece Goals Conceded

This feels like an obvious issue, as highlighted by Opta Analyst in their review of the defeat at Manchester United:

I think they are now counting routine throw-in goals in the set play tally when they wouldn’t have before, thanks to the long throw epidemic. It doesn’t override that the Reds have conceded too often in dead-ball situations.

Either way, Matheus Cunha’s record-setting goal on Sunday was customary of so many set piece goals that have gone against Liverpool this season. It was typical in the sense that it didn’t come directly via the set play itself.

Only one of the 17 has, with Taty Castellanos heading in a Jarrod Bowen corner when West Ham were 4-1 down at Anfield. As you know through enduring Reds matches, so many of the other set piece goals have proven far more costly than that one.

Teams have scored 243 times in set play situations in the 2025/26 Premier League. Not just against Liverpool, even if it feels like it. There have been 59 assists from corners (50), free-kicks (nine) and throw-ins (none; is it worth it?). At this rate, a team might expect four of 17 set piece goals to be assisted, not one. If not a ridiculous outlier, what has happened to Liverpool has been a little odd.

Conclusion

The fact so many unusual occurrences have come into play for Liverpool could be taken two ways. How full is your glass? It could be viewed as evidence that they deserve to be comfortably in the top three rather than in the scrap for fifth. Or maybe it shows that they’ve been fortunate not to be mired in mid-table.

In wanting to avoid the cliché about making your own luck, what seems plain is that they haven’t been good enough. Too much has been left to these random coin flips. How much blame FSG assign to Slot for this remains to be seen.