Stat of the Match: Liverpool 4-2 Tottenham

'Little boy' Harvey Elliott hit the heights

What better time to start a potential new column than when the season is effectively over? At the very least, this is a chance to share something of interest with greater detail than is possible on XTwitter, and without the need to have to sink into the mire on there.

Liverpool beat Tottenham Hotspur 4-2 on Sunday, with Harvey Elliott given the Player of the Match award by both Gary Neville on Sky Sports and by supporters’ in the club vote. Like both Cody Gakpo and Mohamed Salah, the 21-year-old scored and delivered an assist in the game, though his strike from 27 yards was the pick of the bunch on the goal front.

Not that his assist was bad, Elliott delivering his only successful cross of the match to provide Gakpo with a headed opportunity which he converted. While not an Opta-defined big chance, that duo have generated seven this season, leaving only Salah to Núñez, with 16, (a long way) ahead of them for the Reds.

Far more frequent, if not as goal producing, were Elliott’s passes into the Tottenham penalty area. He completed eight, which, according to FBRef, is a new personal best in league and Europe. It’s certainly a decent total, but Andy Robertson recorded 10 at Southampton last season, while Mesut Özil’s 15 against Manchester United in 2017 is the peak in the big five leagues over the last seven seasons.

Liverpool’s number 19 was also a threat inside the box though, with eight touches that included a couple of shots on target and a key pass. Players can be incisive in getting the ball into the penalty area, or productive with it once there, but not often both.

Since summer 2017, there have been thousands of examples in the top divisions of England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain of a player having at least eight touches in the box, and 130 instances of a player completing 8+ passes into it. Only 33 times has someone done both, though, and of the 24 different men who’ve done it, Elliott was the third youngest at the time (via FBRef).

Take a look down the ‘Opp’(onent) column and you won’t see many teams of similar standing to Tottenham. Villarreal finished fifth in La Liga in the season in which Lionel Messi did this to them, but he’s, well, Messi.

As chance would have it, another example of Elliott’s feat occurred on the same day, with Iago Aspas completing this niche double to become the oldest man on the above list. It’s hard to think of the Celta Vigo legend without being reminded of his ill-fated spell at Liverpool. Aspas is remembered for a poorly taken corner, as well as a description of him which Steven Gerrard included in his autobiography (via HITC).

“Straightaway, as soon as I saw them [Aspas and Luis Alberto] in the dressing room, I knew they weren’t going to make it in the Premier League.

“It boiled down to physique. They had the bodies of little boys – they looked about fifteen. I thought ‘Jesus, how are you going to cope against John Terry, Ashley Williams and Ryan Shawcross?'”

Happier times…

Gerrard would’ve probably held a similar opinion of Elliott had they lined up in midfield together. While player height data is notoriously questionable, Gustavo Hamer and Tariq Lamptey are the only players recorded as shorter than the current day Liverpool midfielder who have started more Premier League games than him this season.

Yet with his impact both inside and outside the box against Spurs, Elliott achieved something that few of his taller, bulkier peers have managed. It turns out ‘little boys’ can prosper in English football after all. It might be too late for Aspas but Elliott’s time is only just beginning.