haha we were discussing this right here just a few days ago. I do find it quite odd. It's one of the few areas on the pitch Slot's hands aren't tied by gaps in squad....
That said I don't think it would dramatically change things. Macca is more a symptom of wider malaise than a core cause of our problems IMO. I feel like this bournemouth game was all our problems in a nutshell
- incredibly soft goals to give opponents a lead, letting them drop very deep: check
- poor decisions in final third, ensuring territorial dominance never turns into high xG chances: check
- bad luck for both their goals (it comes off his face and could go anywhere, Joe is taken out by Ali, whatever the hell the not getting Endo on the pitch was): Check
Don't see how Jones starting for Macca fixes any of that really....
Yes it has been a season where two things are true (in very general terms): Liverpool haven’t been good enough but their luck has been appalling. It’s why I don’t think FSG will sack Slot, or at least not before the summer.
I note slot said this in yesterday's presser: “If you are not aware of the information it is not strange to criticise decisions.
“But if people knew the struggles we and I are facing, they would be more understanding of the decisions I make.”
I do worry I/we, as fans, are highly susceptible to some potent mix of confirmation bias, fundamental attribution error and hindsight bias when our club is going through a poor patch.
We lose to Bournemouth and immediately we reverse-engineering the failure to fit a 'clueless manager' narrative, we skip the nuance of the job and go straight to the comfort of a scapegoat. but if you start with the conviction, the evidence always finds a way to show up, hence 'its mad he's playing Macca instead of Curtis' but do I know that Curtis was fully fit to start against Bournemouth? No I do not. Do I know that Curtis trained better than Macca in the week leading up to Marseille and Bournemouth? Nope...
100%. If sport were treated logically it’d be pointless us debating anything. There’s so much we don’t know that goes into crucial decisions. Maybe Liverpool aren’t buying a centre back now because two are coming in the summer, or whatever. I hope Slot can ride it out but I get less and less convinced of that as time passes.
Great analysis. I wonder if the discrepancy between xG and xT for Liverpool would also be impacted by the limitations of xT, mainly that it doesn’t account for the positioning of opponents (mainly low blocks against Liverpool) and if the player is under pressure. Also, xT rewards progressive play over possession, so a risky pass has a high value, but risk in buildup goes against Slot’s current approach.
Thanks. Yeah those are probably factors. Twelve Football used to (publicly) have a similar model where you could see what different events were worth, which would help with this sort of thing.
It's not data that can be pulled together easily. However, as a basic version... WhoScored shows the percentage of attacks that go either left side, central, or right side.
Liverpool's average down the right in all competitions is 35%. For the recent 12-game run in which Salah didn't start it was 33%, then it has been 38% in each match since he returned. His presence seems to lift it down that side but not by a ridiculous amount.
The 'Jones in for Mac Allister please, Arne' bandwagon gains momentum here!
haha we were discussing this right here just a few days ago. I do find it quite odd. It's one of the few areas on the pitch Slot's hands aren't tied by gaps in squad....
That said I don't think it would dramatically change things. Macca is more a symptom of wider malaise than a core cause of our problems IMO. I feel like this bournemouth game was all our problems in a nutshell
- incredibly soft goals to give opponents a lead, letting them drop very deep: check
- poor decisions in final third, ensuring territorial dominance never turns into high xG chances: check
- bad luck for both their goals (it comes off his face and could go anywhere, Joe is taken out by Ali, whatever the hell the not getting Endo on the pitch was): Check
Don't see how Jones starting for Macca fixes any of that really....
Yes it has been a season where two things are true (in very general terms): Liverpool haven’t been good enough but their luck has been appalling. It’s why I don’t think FSG will sack Slot, or at least not before the summer.
I note slot said this in yesterday's presser: “If you are not aware of the information it is not strange to criticise decisions.
“But if people knew the struggles we and I are facing, they would be more understanding of the decisions I make.”
I do worry I/we, as fans, are highly susceptible to some potent mix of confirmation bias, fundamental attribution error and hindsight bias when our club is going through a poor patch.
We lose to Bournemouth and immediately we reverse-engineering the failure to fit a 'clueless manager' narrative, we skip the nuance of the job and go straight to the comfort of a scapegoat. but if you start with the conviction, the evidence always finds a way to show up, hence 'its mad he's playing Macca instead of Curtis' but do I know that Curtis was fully fit to start against Bournemouth? No I do not. Do I know that Curtis trained better than Macca in the week leading up to Marseille and Bournemouth? Nope...
100%. If sport were treated logically it’d be pointless us debating anything. There’s so much we don’t know that goes into crucial decisions. Maybe Liverpool aren’t buying a centre back now because two are coming in the summer, or whatever. I hope Slot can ride it out but I get less and less convinced of that as time passes.
Great analysis. I wonder if the discrepancy between xG and xT for Liverpool would also be impacted by the limitations of xT, mainly that it doesn’t account for the positioning of opponents (mainly low blocks against Liverpool) and if the player is under pressure. Also, xT rewards progressive play over possession, so a risky pass has a high value, but risk in buildup goes against Slot’s current approach.
Thanks. Yeah those are probably factors. Twelve Football used to (publicly) have a similar model where you could see what different events were worth, which would help with this sort of thing.
That’s a lot of successful passes into the final 3rd on our right. Curious how that looks with Salah vs without.
It's not data that can be pulled together easily. However, as a basic version... WhoScored shows the percentage of attacks that go either left side, central, or right side.
Liverpool's average down the right in all competitions is 35%. For the recent 12-game run in which Salah didn't start it was 33%, then it has been 38% in each match since he returned. His presence seems to lift it down that side but not by a ridiculous amount.