The Match, The Stat: Bournemouth 3-2 Liverpool
Sloppy goals conceded? Fight back into the game? Heartbreaking late winner? It's Liverpool in 2025/26.
Top Five Stats
This was the Reds’ third league game on the road which directly followed a Champions League away match in 2025/26. They have lost all three with eight goals conceded.
Virgil van Dijk committed his second Opta-defined defensive error leading to a goal in the league this term. He made one in 2024/25, none the season before.
Liverpool conceded six Opta-defined big chances for the third time this season, allowing seven at Crystal Palace and Brentford. However, as they only had one themselves here, the difference of -5 is their worst under Arne Slot.
Dominik Szoboszlai scored and assisted in a match for the second time this season (also doing so in Frankfurt). Mohamed Salah has achieved this just once.
Salah missed the Reds’ only big chance. He has converted just two of 15 (excluding penalties) this season, failing to score seven out of seven when Liverpool have been losing.
Match Review
Liverpool had won 12 of their last 13 Premier League games against Bournemouth. The Cherries failed to take three points in 12 of their previous 13 league games full stop. There could only be one outcome here, right?
For the first 25 minutes an away win seemed likely, as (admittedly without creating much) the Reds were dominating the match. Fifty-eight per cent of the possession, four corners, that sort of thing. Liverpool were playing long balls down the right flank towards Mohamed Salah like Trent Alexander-Arnold had never left.
Then, disaster.
The demons fans had feared were merely napping since the PSV horrorshow awoke. Virgil van Dijk conceded a bizarre penalty in that game and he was at fault for Bournemouth’s first goal. Arguably the second too, albeit Milos Kerkez was also culpable. Neither was helped by Liverpool being down to 10, essentially through their own stupidity in not putting the ball out of play to allow a substitution.
The big rock Arne Slot had been slowly pushing up the mountain in a 13-game unbeaten streak tumbled down to the bottom. What did he have when back at base camp?
Bournemouth were painted as a favourable opponent for the Reds before the game because they are not a dour, low-block outfit. They come to play. Even they can hold firm when effectively gifted a two-goal advantage though.
The shot count read 9-0 to Liverpool for the 38 minutes following the Cherries’ second goal. With an average expected goal value of just 0.07, Bournemouth remained largely comfortable, happy to let their opponents take shots when they may as well not have bothered.
This period wasn’t all bad for the visitors. Cody Gakpo teed up Salah for a big chance, then the Reds pulled a goal back.
A Liverpool stat had flashed up on screen early in the match: 117 corners taken in the league this season, one goal. RIP, Briggsball.
Bournemouth have conceded more set play goals than any other team in the Premier League though. Yes, even the Reds. As against West Ham and at Chelsea last season, van Dijk atoned for a goal-costing error by scoring at the other end.
The Cherries’ frailty in dead ball situations was emphasised when Dominik Szoboszlai equalised in the 80th minute. At that stage, Bournemouth led the xG 1.11 to 0.78, with two big chances to one. Unsatisfactory from a Liverpool viewpoint, yes, but in miserable conditions on the road three days after a Champions League away? It was not exactly a shock.
What did the Reds have left? No further substitutions, for one thing. While Slot’s hand was forced to an extent by the accidental injury to Joe Gomez, the boss had made his five subs by the 74th minute. Doing this only seems to occur through comfort or desperation.
For games that were already won in which this occurred, see the victories that saw Slot’s men score five at the London Stadium and in Frankfurt. For those where he rolled his dice early to get back into a game, I give you that Nottingham Forest loss early in 2024/25, the Carabao Cup final, the defeat to Galatasaray and this match. When negative scorelines have prompted Slot to make all five changes with more than 15 minutes to go, Liverpool have lost regardless.
This was unlike the other defeats in that the Reds collapsed in the closing stages when the very least they should have walked away with was a point. Instead, Evanilson wasted a big chance when clean through before a further three of them occurred in the chaos that resulted in the winner. What had been a close game was suddenly anything but. Game management, anyone?
It’s hard to know whether to be more frustrated with the defending or the attacking. The former ultimately cost Liverpool points through individual errors. The latter was deeply uninspiring, as highlighted by the difference in these two numbers:
Expected goals gives a numerical value to shots, expected threat (xT) effectively does the same for everything else. All the passes, dribbles, tackles and who knows what else is rated based on how much it increases a team’s likelihood of scoring.
The gap of -1.31 between xT and xG is the widest negative margin either for or against Liverpool in any of their league or European matches this season. Aside from their score in the 3-0 loss to Forest (-1.12) neither Reds or their opponents have dropped below -0.76. This was an extreme outlier of heavy build up with little production at the end of it.
Against a side that does not deploy a low block, this is a problem. Every time you think Liverpool are moving forward this season, they slip back. They take a few steps, they find a rake. They face a long throw, they concede a goal.
It’s never good to have more questions than answers. For the nth time this season, this is yet again where we find the Reds.
Source for graphics: Stats Zone, markstatsbot.
Something that occurred to me after yesterday's game was that this team gets spooked by ANY change in game state - conceding a goal, missing a penalty, not getting a penalty, subs, and even scoring a goal!
I was shocked at how much more vulnerable we looked after scoring the equaliser yesterday. Just when you expected the momentum to tip in our favour, it actually went in the complete opposite direction. The xG graphic in your article shows this. Bournemouth battered us after it went 2-2.
The best teams play the same way regardless of the game state. We're far from that. What on earth is the fix? Why aren't they players confident in their game plan? The coach needs to be getting this message across, but this season he seems to be inducing panic himself. Maybe somebody needs to have a quiet word with him and remind him how he made it to this level and won the top prize.
Up the reds!
We've been spoiled to an extent by having Jurgen managing the team for so long and becoming accustomed to 100%, full on, heavy metal football.
Last year was more tempered, and it was glorious, but the 100% nature of the identity was there for most of the season.
I think it's fair to say that this team in now Slots and our identity has been lost/replaced. Slot can't bring himself to trust anyone outside the core 15 or 16 players he uses so it's no great surprise when those outside that core can't function within the framework because the don't get the opportunities bar rare occasions.
I find myself unwilling to watch much anymore, the central belief of both the team and the supporters that there's always the desire to win in the team has left.