The Liverpool Back Four That Made The Best Defensive Wall This Season

Which combination of defenders had the best xG conceded average for the Reds in 2024/25? Their best individual for this stat will surprise you.

It’s hard to quantify an individual player’s contribution to their team’s results. If they score more goals and provide more assists than anybody else in their league, maybe. But for everyone else?

FBRef carries data on the points-per-match players earn from the games in which they featured. Setting the bar at a minimum of nine appearances in the 2024/25 Premier League sees Joe Gomez joint-top.

Wataru Endō leads the way once we hit double figures, then Alexis Mac Allister is king once we pass 20 matches. As interesting as the numbers are, it’s clear which of this trio was most integral to Liverpool becoming kings of England.

The top players for points-per-match with 9+ appearances in 2024/25

We could also look at how a team’s goal difference (expected or actual) compares when someone is on the field with when they are not. Almost everyone with the best figures plays nearly every match though.

Virgil van Dijk was rested for one game this season, which Liverpool lost 3-2 at Brighton after drawing on xG. As a result, the data for 2024/25 says he improves the Reds’ goal difference by 2.2 for every 90 minutes he plays. As phenomenal as he is, that simply isn’t true.

A better use of this data is to look at the underlying statistics for the relevant end at which a player does their work. You’d expect the best attacking players to help their side generate expected goals, just as it seems logical that the best defenders would prevent them at the back.

Here are the top 10 defenders in the Premier League this season for lowest xG conceded per 90 minutes on the field. The bar for entry is set at 1,710 minutes (half a full season).

Calling this article ‘Here’s why Trent Alexander-Arnold is Liverpool’s best defender’ would’ve seen hate-clicks roll in en masse. Even so, he was at least 0.11 better than the three other members of what most people would call the Reds’ best back four combination.

How much of this was directly down to the departing #66 is debatable, of course, but you wouldn’t have anticipated these findings, would you? It makes more sense to look at the backline as a unit to get a better grip on defensive performance, as inspired by this message:

The sample sizes vary hugely, so the findings can’t possibly be definitive. Nonetheless, the back four of Alexander-Arnold, Ibrahima Konaté, van Dijk and Andy Robertson was not Liverpool’s most effective this season.