Walk, Jog or Sprint: The Distance Covered Debate
Covering distance only seems to matter when you lose, not when you win.
Liverpool won the first Merseyside derby at the Hill Dickenson Stadium in dramatic circumstances. Having dropped two points in stoppage time in their final match at Goodison, the Reds picked them back up in the 100th minute on Sunday.
They have far greater need for the points this season too. Their victory was made all the more remarkable by the fact that Everton covered more distance than the Reds during the game.
What? You didn’t hear about that? I didn’t think so. Why would you? Physical data only ever seems to get aired in relation to Liverpool when they are outrun in their defeats, regardless of how relevant or not the kilometres they covered are to the outcome of the game.
The physical data should not be dismissed entirely. A recent Bluesky post by Reds fan Dan Kennett showed there has been some correlation between the extent to which Liverpool’s opponents have logged more distance and their results this season.
With timing that can chop down any statto (trust me), the Reds then won their next league match against Fulham despite Marco Silva’s men covering 7.43km more of the Anfield turf than they did. The distance numbers that both teams ran in that game were near identical to those in Liverpool’s preceding Premier League match, a limp defeat at Brighton.
Even the word ‘ran’ is somewhat misguided when the data is broken down into walking, jogging and sprinting. Does it matter that a team has a higher distance covered if most of the difference was conducted at walking pace?
Ask Everton; 2.57 of the extra 2.69 kilometres they covered at the Hill Dickenson Stadium was at the lowest speed setting. Most of that was probably spent trudging back towards the halfway line after Liverpool scored.
So, what does affect how much ground a team covers? What is the impact? Put your trainers on. Pop a calculator in your pocket. It’s time to dig into some running numbers.
