The Change Which Explains Liverpool's Improved Attack
Arne Slot's tactics aren't wildly different from those used by Jürgen Klopp. One slight change may show why Liverpool's attack is more efficient now though.
The previous edition of this newsletter made the bold suggestion that Liverpool have one of the best attacking processes of the Premier League data era, so, by extension, of all time. That conclusion was reached by virtue of them taking a high proportion of their shots from inside the penalty area when also putting an elite level of efforts on target.
It clearly resonated with Arne Slot’s men. The Reds played Tottenham Hotspur on Thursday evening, firing off 24 of their 26 shots from within the penalty area. Opening goal scorer Cody Gakpo had five attempts in the 18-yard-box, as many shots as Spurs had in total, never mind from within reasonable range of Caoimhín Kelleher’s goal. No wonder the Dutch forward mustered roughly as many expected goals as Tottenham did across the two legs of the tie.
The aim of the previous article was to prove how strong Liverpool are using very basic statistics which were available over 20 years ago. With the xG value of any individual shot questionable at best, miles off at worst, there’s a case to be made that knowing if an attempt was in the box and on target might be just as useful. Maybe more so. Who wants to bother with decimal points?
As interesting as the previous findings were, to be able to explain how the shift has occurred requires a dig around in more detailed data. The obvious place to start was to look at how many passes the Reds make into opposition boxes, as to take more shots from the best locations, they have to get the ball there somehow.
Yet their average for this statistic has dropped from 13.3 per game in 2023/24 to 12.5 this season. We will compare the change in figures between the two campaigns for 11 players: forwards, midfielders and full-backs with at least 629 minutes in the Premier League this term (as it’s always good to include Diogo Jota whenever possible).
There have been decent gains on this metric from Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold, but their colleagues have either held their rate at best or diminished. There must be another reason for Liverpool’s increased penalty box potency.
You read the chart correctly; Darwin Núñez hasn’t played a single pass into the opposition penalty area so far this season. As per his pass map for 2024/25 (from Opta Analyst) it’s not that the Uruguayan hasn’t tried. He has also completed passes from inside the box, just not from outside into it.
The decrease in Jota’s figure suggests passing into the penalty area isn’t a requirement for the central forward in Slot’s team in any case. Let’s consider another method of ball delivery.
With open play crosses, the numbers are so much smaller that any change is likely to be negligible; a 20 per cent improvement on 2023/24 sounds impressive until you realise it works out at less than one every two games. Nonetheless, there are points of interest in the figures for this season.
Both Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson are completing marginally more open play crosses per 90 than in any previous season. Even with the gaps being small, it feels notable that both have hit a new peak, with the right-back operating in the upper echelon of what the Premier League has seen across the last eight seasons:
Salah has made the biggest increase on last seasons numbers from the 11 players in our study. Gakpo has also seen an uptick, with the wide forwards frequently aiming to find each other with diagonal crosses to the back post area. Here is an overlay of their open play cross pitch maps in 2024/25 to illustrate the point.
Adding the successful passes to the crosses into the box shows that the Reds have shrunk slightly from 15.4 per game last season to 15.0 under Slot. Only twice in the previous seven campaigns was it lower, albeit the range from minimum to maximum only stretches across 1.9 points. There are only ever minor tweaks in ball delivery, not dramatic shifts in output.
So how are Liverpool taking a higher proportion of shots in the box without passing it into that region? Their rate per game for shots from set pieces, most of which would be from within the penalty area, has dropped from 4.8 to 3.0 since last season so that cannot explain it.
The answer is that they are carrying the ball into the box more than ever before, with one man largely responsible for the rise. You’ll never guess who it is.
The Reds made productive use of carrying the ball into the box in the second half of their latest win over Tottenham; Conor Bradley did so to set up Núñez, while both Gakpo and Robertson had shots following a carry into the penalty area. The latter also led to the corner which resulted in the fourth goal.
But if you need a man to provide you an example of almost anything good that the Reds offer offensively, you turn to Salah. He is the master of this metric.
The Egyptian assisted Gakpo for the first goal after carrying the ball from close to the touchline into the box. Per Opta Analyst, Salah is taking a shot or setting up a chance following a carry of at least five metres an average of 2.0 times per 90 minutes in the league this season, up from his 1.5 rate last term.
There is no way to know from the available data how many of them went from outside the box into it. What we do know, though, is that by completing 3.8 carries into the penalty area per 90 in 2024/25, the 32-year-old has the second best rate of any player (with a decent sample of pitch time) in Europe’s big five leagues across the last eight seasons.
Never mind the names, look at the ages. Ball carrying output at this level is not normally the preserve of men in their fourth decade. If you look for players in their thirties who recorded north of two box carries per 90, there are only six others, two of whom were Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Salah is up at 3.8 when no other veteran has hit three in the data era.
His carrying makes up over half of his total when combined with open play passes and crosses, with his grand total leaving teammates in the dust.
The net result of these various numerical shifts is that Liverpool are now completing 24 combined passes, crosses and carries into the penalty area per game, more than in any of the previous seven campaigns. Only five sides topped this figure from 2017/18 to 2023/24; four from Manchester City and an Arsenal.
The Reds have reached a mark only previously logged by teams that finished at worst second in the Premier League. With that level of output geared to getting the most out of one of the best footballers in the world, it’s obvious why Liverpool’s figures for box shots and attempts on target are also among the best around.
Getting Salah to get the ball into the box more helps, who knew?!
It helps when he's having one of the greatest output seasons seen from a Liverpool player, of course.
We have to get Mo signed, if Edwards (Or Hughes I guess) are worried about a drop in form there is so far he would have to drop to make that deal a disaster for Liverpool. Slot has made him to focal point in our attack, losing him shouldn't even be an option when the player wants to be here.