The Match, The Stat: Burnley 0-1 Liverpool
To cross or not to cross? What do you think, Jeremie?
Liverpool are trying to retain the English title for the first time since 1984 in the most dramatic fashion possible. Why else would they be leaving it so late to score their winning goals week after week?
This is not how championships are won. They are won by securing as many dull, efficient victories as possible. The 2025/26 campaign was inevitably going to be an emotional one no matter how the Reds fared. Expending maximum energy to secure every single point with sensational late finishes is only going to accentuate that.
The two things are to some extent connected. People ask why Mohamed Salah hasn’t started the season well when the same Mohamed Salah was weeping in front of the Kop for Diogo Jota one month ago today. He has lost a hero, he has lost a friend, as have we all. It’s hard.
At least on Sunday Liverpool deserved to win, even if they were fortunate to get over the line before the clock stopped. The underlying numbers were far more in their favour than they were in any of their first three matches.
Using an expected goals simulator, you can figure out the likelihood of a result based on the xG value of the shots each side takes. Liverpool’s efforts suggested they had just a 15.3 per cent chance of not scoring prior to the penalty. They were equally as likely to score three times.
More notably, they won 80.5 per cent of the simulated outcomes. They more than earned whatever fortune they were then gifted by Handball Mejbri.
More interesting than how much xG they amassed is how they amassed their xG. The answer to that has been a recurrent theme in the early weeks of 2025/26.
Footballing formations can be a handy shorthand for tactical set-ups or they can be almost entirely irrelevant. At Jürgen Klopp’s first Liverpool press conference he uttered the phrase “doubters to believers,” three words which defined his tenure. Arne Slot used his media debut to dismiss a claim from Redmen TV’s Chris Pajak that his Feyenoord side had played 4-2-3-1, even when the official Opta records say they mostly did.
This point is worth considering here as Burnley played in a 5-4-1 set up against the Reds. Make no mistake about it, it was 5-4-1 in its purest form. Uncut Pulis or Allardyce with a street value of no thank you very much.
The Clarets’ approach was perfectly understandable. Pick your poison: Florian Wirtz picking locks with through-balls or Cody Gakpo attempting 13 crosses for the first time in his Premier League career? Scott Parker chose the Dutch potion.
The days of Damien Comolli at Liverpool have thankfully long since ended. He reportedly believed that a team that attempted over 30 crosses would nearly always win. The team he built to have Stewart Downing feeding Andy Carroll emphatically proved otherwise.
While the FBRef database doesn’t go back to those dark days, it has remained rare for the Reds to win if attempting over 40 crosses. This was one of two of the three victories in the 11 league game sample which needed a stoppage time winner.
Even if you can’t remember the specifics of the matches on this list, you can easily visualise a low block or two. Crystal Palace and Tottenham deployed back threes in those games, which may have become fives when the Reds applied some pressure. The ball gets funnelled wide which leaves crossing as the easiest route into the box.
It’s an ineffective method of creating chances as the above scorelines suggest. Yet despite this crosses proved fruitful for Liverpool at Turf Moor.
They generated three Opta-defined big chances in total. The first came from a corner, with Gakpo finding Ibrahima Konaté at point-blank range. As the second half ebbed away, an Andy Robertson delivery found Federico Chiesa in a surprising amount of space in the heart of the Burnley box.
And then came Jeremie Frimpong. With Liverpool’s final cross, his effort led to a penalty. Undoubtedly fortunate as it was, the Reds would not have had a big chance for the second game running were it not for their crossing.
In fact, they’d have barely had one this season if we discount any that were created via crosses, as you can see below. Come back, Damien, all is forgiven.
There have only been two exceptions. The first saw Hugo Ekitike bundle his way into the Bournemouth box, enjoying a favourable run of the ball. The other, while technically not a cross, was a pass from the edge of the area towards the far side of it. If it looks like a cross and smells like a cross, it’s probably a cross.
This will not be Slot’s ideal. He’d rather see Wirtz slicing open backlines, as would we all. That will take time, though. Relationships need to form, bonds need to be made. Telepathic connections are not easy to come by.
If only they had a 6’4” striker with an excellent movement who scored the joint-second most headers in the Premier League last season. Are you ready yet, Alexander? There’s going to be some crosses heading your way.
