Stat of the Match: Liverpool 2-0 Wolves
Let’s be clear: the final match of Liverpool’s 2023/24 season was not about the result or the performance or the statistics. But when you start a new series on your Substack in the final three weeks of the season, you’d better finish it, hadn’t you?
After the Reds’ 2-0 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers, departing manager Jürgen Klopp gave a speech to his adoring faithful. When asked which Anfield match he’d go back to if he could, everyone watching around the world expected to hear the word Barcelona in the next second or two.
“One of the [Manchester] City games we drew. That would have helped,” he joked. Klopp’s men drew with the Cityzens at home in 2018/19 and 2021/22, missing out on the title to them by a single point in both seasons.
However, in the former example, Riyad Mahrez missed a penalty, with the value of the kick ensuring the Cityzens edged the expected goal totals by 1.0 to 0.4, while the xG tallies were 1.2 to 0.9 in their favour in 2021. Maybe if Klopp were granted a dream replay Liverpool would then win, but according to the balance of chances they didn’t particularly deserve to on either day.
He recently pinpointed this seasons Anfield clash with City as one of his favourite matches, and the numbers paint it as his Liverpool’s most dominant game in the last seven seasons against Pep Guardiola’s side. Liverpool crafted 1.9 non-penalty xG in that match and failed to convert any of it, their goal in the 1-1 draw being struck from the spot by Alexis Mac Allister.
From their non-penalty chances, the Reds generated 1.0 in Opta’s post-shot expected goal model. That means they squandered 0.9 from the standard xG, but they still did enough to reasonably expect to score.
Which brings us to Sunday and the chosen stat. Wolves goalkeeper José Sá might have been beaten twice, but he faced 5.1 post shot xG. This meant he became just the 15th goalkeeper to save at least 3.0 of chances in the big five European leagues in the last seven seasons.
Good for him. But from Liverpool’s perspective it’s even worse. This match provided the 84th big league example of a team generating at least 5.0 post-shot xG since the summer of 2017. There have only been three where the side in question didn’t score at least three times though.
The Reds have not been a good finishing team this season. They topped the Premier League for xG, with 88.2, but were second once the post-shot model was factored in (82.6) and underperformed that to finish third on total goals, fourth if we disregard own goals.
Their wastefulness against Wolves didn’t matter in the least as it was a dead rubber match, and it certainly dragged down some of their season-wide finishing figures quoted above. If Klopp wanted to replay the City match from 2023/24 in the hope of going four points clear of them with 10 games to go this term, I’m not convinced his side would’ve converted whatever chances they created.
Perhaps if we have to go on XG for past games the one he should want to replay is the third CL final. I don’t think that team fails to score in that match twice.
Another great piece, thanks Beez.
In truth we fell apart at and after Old Trafford. Our defending lacked cohesion. But to put it in perspective if we had conceded our season average of 36 goals, since Klopp arrived, we would have still finished behind City by a point.
I think we have focused a lot on our finishing. And rightly so. But its overlooked how average our defending has been. I do wonder what we achieved from selling Fabinho and buying Endo bar the £££ difference. I thought he did a great job but couldn't Fab have done the same with Macca and Szoboszlai either side?