It's The Attack, Stupid

Not the economy. Liverpool's expected goal difference has declined since 2024/25. No shock there but the attack being more to blame than the defence is a surprise.

Liverpool have had the hardest fixtures of any team in the Premier League this season, at least according to the table. It’s reasonable to assume that they should improve over the next two months, with nine reasonable looking league fixtures before they travel to Arsenal.

This was the subject of the previous edition of this newsletter. The article noted that the Reds have taken six points fewer than they earned from the corresponding fixtures last season. As they gained two against the Gunners, they’re eight points down if we disregard the dead rubber games after the title was won.

As bad as that sounds, the expected goal difference has only gone down by 3.4, or 0.31 per game. Those figures drop to 2.6 and 0.24 if we exclude penalties, as Liverpool have conceded an extra one this term. You probably assume the drop off in performance has been worse, or that a dip of such relatively small size wouldn’t make as much difference to the results as it has.

While the Reds’ results are likely to improve in the next few weeks, it will be hard for them to better the corresponding numbers, underlying or actual. The forthcoming run includes trips to Tottenham and West Ham, a pair of fixtures in which Liverpool scored 11 goals with two of the 11 best xG difference performances by away teams in the 2024/25 Premier League. Most Kopites would be happy with 1-0 victories this time around, thank you very much.

To win those games will not be easy. Thomas Frank and Nuno Espírito Santo will be plotting long-ball, aerial assaults upon the Liverpool back line having seen the difficulty such tactics have given the Reds. Uh-oh, Arne.

Are you having nightmares already? Nobody would blame you if you were. Except for one thing: Liverpool’s defence has improved on expected goals against the corresponding fixtures. The drop in the xG difference is explained entirely by the attack. We’d better dig into this, it can’t be right.