Liverpool's Expected Threat Shows What They're Missing

Or more accurately, who they're missing

The review of the Bournemouth match mentioned expected threat. As it’s a metric that hasn’t been covered on this newsletter before, it’s time to dig into Liverpool’s xT.

Expected threat sounds ominous. In the real world, it is. Especially at the moment. In football, it’s “the measure of scoring opportunities created via passes and crosses. Calculated based on start/end locations of non-shot events,” according to the MarkStats website.

It’s a way to assess a team or individual’s build-up play. We get an idea of how much they should create in expected goal terms, providing us the opportunity to compare the xT and xG figures. We can also assess the balance between attack and defence.

At Bournemouth, Liverpool generated a high expected threat without producing much of significant value in shot terms. The map of their successful final third passes illustrates this, with very few of the 204 recorded resulting in chances created in good areas (as denoted by the lighter blue arrows).

Bournemouth delivered as many key passes in the danger zone as the Reds from a quarter as many in the attacking third (with yellow arrows representing assists). Their defensive line - the average distance from a team's goal to where its defensive actions occur - was the deepest Liverpool have faced in the Premier League or Europe this season. The Cherries were almost 15 meters deeper than their average, earning the right to do that by going 2-0 up.

The Reds were held at bay relatively easily. Expected threat doesn’t count for much without creating chances. The issue for Arne Slot is that Liverpool’s xT is lower than in past seasons, with the defensive number not sufficiently impressive to overcome that.

This needn’t be disastrous. The figures for 2025/26 aren’t miles adrift of what Liverpool achieved in their title-winning campaigns. It’s the difference between these numbers and their expected goal equivalents that looks alarming.