Liverpool's League Season Rests On The Next Nine Matches

Liverpool are on a bad run. If things are going to turn, it has to happen immediately.

Nov 10, 2025

If you looked at some old Premier League tables, you might think Liverpool still had a chance of winning the title. Fourteen of the last 29 champions lost at least five games, the number of defeats the Reds have suffered in 2025/26.

Many of the losses for title winners occurred in dead rubbers though. The eventual champions in the last three decades were beaten an average of just 1.1 times in their opening 11 games. Only Manchester City in 2013/14 lost more than two, with their tally standing at four.

Liverpool’s wait to retain the title which stretches back to 1984 will have to go on for a few more years. You don’t have to like it but you’d better accept it.

All is not lost. Some Reds fans are writing off the team’s chances of qualifying for the Champions League because they are eighth. The fact they are two points off third place is far more pertinent than their current position in the table.

It’s also worth glancing at the underlying numbers. Liverpool’s expected goal difference is +3.7; not great, not terrible. It improves if you strip out penalties (to +4.5) though they remain fifth in the standings either way; equally, it’s above what Aston Villa had after 38 matches when finishing fourth two seasons ago. The foundation is there for an assault on qualification for Europe’s top table.

Further context will make you feel better about the Reds’ future. The average league position of the teams Liverpool have faced so far this season is 8.5, the highest in the Premier League. While that dips a touch to 8.8 if we look at expected points, the identity of the team with the toughest opening 11 fixtures remains constant.

Arne Slot’s men travel to Arsenal at the start of the second week of January. They play nine league games before then which will determine the shape of the second half of the campaign. We can feel justifiably optimistic about how they will perform.

A little positivity is needed as we must stew on the defeat at the Etihad Stadium for two weeks over the international break. The 3-0 loss took three points and five goals off the Reds’ record against their corresponding fixtures from last season. It also pushed City to the top of the standings, for whatever they are worth.

At least Liverpool are still comfortably third. The issue is that this assumes the side of 2025/26 are capable of matching the results their predecessors produced last season. That doesn’t look likely, which is why using expected points to predict the rest of the campaign suggests the Reds are in a bunfight for fourth to seventh. It’s a far more realistic scenario at this point.

This is a better forecasting system than corresponding fixtures but it doesn’t take account of the difficulty of the games played or those to come. This is what makes Liverpool’s next nine league matches so crucial.

Five of the first eight are at home, which immediately helps. Only two of the nine opponents are currently above 11th in the league table. The placing of the four away opponents are 18th, 16th, fifth and 15th. Even then, the Tottenham side that look comfortably the hardest of that quartet are sat 19th in the home table. The other top half side whom the Reds will face are Sunderland, who are in the bottom three for expected points.

Liverpool’s opponents over the remainder of 2025/26 currently hold an average position of 11.5 in the league table, 11.7 for expected points. It is the most favourable run-in of any Premier League side, whichever method you prefer.

Those figures rise to 13.8 and 13.1 respectively for the next nine games. The time for Liverpool to kick on has arrived. By virtue of this favourable schedule, this season's expected goal data predicts the Reds will have at least 0.7 xG more than their opponents in seven of the next nine games.

It doesn’t mean they will win those matches of course, just that them doing so is by far the likeliest outcome. Only Arsenal, with 19.6, are predicted to earn more points than Liverpool (16.6) across the next nine matches. If you apply an expected points system whereby anything over 0.4 expected goal difference equates to a win, the Reds are forecasted to collect 20 of the next 27 on offer.

Dare they dream of aiming higher? A few wins would immediately restore battered confidence. It’s also important to remember that any data prediction is based on the underlying numbers as they stand. Improved performance in the next few fixtures will increase their chances of future wins, both on paper and on the pitch.

Liverpool's forthcoming opponents. Number in brackets after team name is current league position — Liverpool’s forthcoming opponents. Number in brackets after team name is current league position

Having decent gaps between matches once the Champions League wraps up for 2025 will also help. It is vital that the Reds are prepared for the challenges they will face, as they haven’t always looked like they have been this season.

These matches are against teams that have good players and will battle hard, no matter how kind a run of fixtures it is in principle. Some will inevitably use direct tactics to disrupt the champions too. Nonetheless, anything should feel possible at this point for a group as talented as Slot’s squad, even if morale has taken a battering since the start of July.

‘If Liverpool win their next nine games’ is the biggest if you’ll read this or many other weeks. But if that happened they’d be on 45 points at one match past the half way stage.

It’s a plausible outcome. Unlikely? Absolutely. It isn’t impossible if they can finish chances at a reasonable rate while eradicating the individual errors which keep hampering them though.

Come to think of it, that’s the biggest if you’ll read for quite some time.