The Match, The Stat: Liverpool 1-2 Manchester United
Football is a stupid sport. Liverpool are playing it stupidly at the worst possible moments. It's a team and a fanbase in need of a hug.
Top Five Stats
Liverpool’s non-penalty expected goal difference advantage of +1.5 was their most in a league loss since January 2018.
The Reds’ xG was just 0.02 below the total they posted when beating Manchester United 7-0.
The starting three attackers all missed an Opta-defined big chance, with four in total between them.
Cody Gakpo became only the second Liverpool player to hit the woodwork with a shot twice in a league game at Anfield since the summer of 2017 (though Darwin Núñez did it on two occasions, because of course he did).
The Reds have now conceded a goal from the first opposition shot in the last three league games, all of which were lost.
Match Review
Clarity of thought is everything in life. With a clear head, anything feels possible. A cloud-free brain matters even more in elite sport. There look to be a lot of cloudy heads in the Liverpool family at the moment, including on the touchline.
It’s obvious why that is, with their collective grief hovering in the background of everything they do. The Reds have lost established connections, fluency and a hero, a friend. Their collective belief has drained away.
Going behind to the first shot of the game every week doesn’t help. Considering they had to face a back five with a head start, Liverpool actually created a lot of decent chances in this match. Alas, the fog descended again; the opportunities were spurned, which happens, but poor play cost them defensively in key moments.
In broad strokes, Liverpool’s attacking performance matched what you might expect. Manchester United started with a back three of Matthijs de Ligt, Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw for the third time, after their 2-1 win over Chelsea and 3-1 loss at Brentford.
The Red Devils’ only clean sheet starting with two of them last season occurred in the 1-0 win at Fulham, their previous victory on the road. They are not accustomed to shutting teams out with this backline.
Similarly, a recent article in The Athletic on shot blocking highlighted that “their steepest decline has come in the centre of their box, where they blocked only seven per cent of the xG conceded.” Sure enough, just two Liverpool shots were blocked - both from corners, they accounted for just 0.06 expected goals - with United not even hitting their lowly rate for getting in the way of efforts in the danger zone. You would expect Arne Slot’s side to score given this history which they did, just not more than once.
The major issue for the Reds is that their potency is coming at the expense of structure, with Slot throwing on attackers to save games. Liverpool started this match with only two outfield players who weren’t at the club last season. Six men who each started at least 29 league matches in 2024/25 were in the positions in which those appearances came. Yet by full time the Reds were chasing an equaliser with this unfamiliar side in a formation they don’t use too often:
What section of this side is going to produce magic? It’s a gang of strangers, more or less. You can at least say that some of these players are performing at a higher level than those that started on Sunday. Clarity of thought remain lacking, though.
Let’s say you wanted to find an example of a Liverpool match, one where the statistics say they were unfortunate to lose. Here are two arbitrary statistical bars to clear: at least 1.7 non-penalty expected goals for the Reds, with a npxG difference margin of at least 0.8 in their favour.
The last three games all fit the criteria, hence why those figures were chosen. How many other examples were there in league or Europe since the summer of 2017?
Six.
Six, two of which were either a dead rubber after the Premier League title was secured in 2020 or the second leg of a Champions League tie that was won regardless. Even with these less than fully competitive fixture it’s only half a dozen instances in over eight years before a trio in succession.
It doesn’t mean these performances were great. Such games are often end to end which carries a sizeable risk. Nonetheless, to lose the previous three consecutively remains an outlier, a black swan, a freak occurrence.
This outcome occurs in the Premier League less than once every other week yet it’s happened to the defending champions three times in a row (in all competitions). Whatever fortune Liverpool enjoyed early in the campaign has more than swung back in the opposite direction, smacking them in the face as it passed.
This being said, with the understandable cloud over the team I’m not convinced things will automatically turn for the better immediately. The added pressure that poor form brings is being applied to a playing group and manager that are either grieving or have recently joined a squad that is. Clear minds will remain thin on the ground.
But a team that deserves a break or two this season for what they have suffered is in the eye of a brutally unforgiving storm. I just want to give them a hug to tell them it’ll be alright, you know?
