Dominate match – miss clear chances. Concede one goal – push the self-destruct button. Yeah, normal service is resumed for Liverpool. The common features that led to the club’s worst run of form since 1954, last season, seem to still be lingering around the squad – even with a new manager with new ideas. When will the poor run and bad luck end for the Reds? The performance was decent but bad finishing and poor refereeing cost Brendan Rodgers his first Premier League win at the club.
The stats would suggest a different performance, though – a good one would you believe.
Rodgers has brought a new system, new ideas and a new philosophy to Liverpool – a passing one and the pass completion statistics are impressive. The lowest % rate was Pepe Reina, with 71% completed from 14 attempted – 79% of which went forward.
Three players for Liverpool stayed above 90%: Glen Johnson, Lucas Leiva and, least surprisingly, Joe Allen who completed 66 of 69 passes. He could be tagged as a player who only passes sideways or backwards but exactly a third of his passes went forward, showing what he can add to attack for the Reds. Actually, just 9% of his passes went backwards. That should prove any possible future doubters wrong.
Liverpool Attack
The biggest let-down in attack, in terms of passing, was Stewart Downing who only directed 9% of his passes forward – disappointing. The winger had a depressing first season at Anfield and has an awful lot to do to impress the fans on the Kop and he’ll need to do more than what he offered today.
His miserable total of two attempted dribbles proves this. As a winger, he must attempt more dribbles and try to take full-backs on, or even cut in and take a shot but he continues to fail in this department. He failed to create any clear-cut chances, something which many people who backed him last season used to defend him. A stick to defend Downing from criticism was his large number of clear-cut chances created. While I agree that scoring takes two aspects – the chance creator and the chance converter - he still should be involved in supplying the front men a lot more, and more effectively.
It will come as no surprise to see who was the most lively Liverpool player today. Once again, Luis Suarez took it upon himself to create and supply. He created two chances from open play and attempted 4 dribbles, completing three. What you have to take into account when assessing Suarez’s number of created chances is that he also creates for himself. In today’s match, he allowed himself three shots at goal from his own work. Liam Ridgewell, surprisingly, was the only one playing for West Brom to come anywhere near Suarez’s impact today.
Sending off costs Liverpool
Not many West Brom players stood out from each other in the chance creation aspect but they all chipped in. To compare the two sides, Steve Clarke had 9 of his players who created something, while Rodgers only had five players to count on – Suarez, Johnson, Borini, Gerrard and Lucas. Liverpool’s quintet managed to create 9 chances from open play, compared to West Brom’s 11. West Brom’s number is so high because up until Daniel Agger’s sending off, they had only created one chance – Zoltan Gera’s goal.
The red card allowed them to step up a gear and push Liverpool back, thus creating more chances. Liverpool have to increase the number of chances they make, no question about it. Chance creation needs to be high if you are to dominate effectively. It’s rare that a team creates one chance, scores it, and wins the game. Many may question this point but, personally, I feel the rarity of the occasions amps it up so its easier to recollect compared to when a team creates 10 chances and scores once.
As I strolled through the stats of the match, I stumbled upon a fantastic one. The debutant, Allen, is well-known for his tidy passing game and he brought his A-game today when in possession. As I earlier mentioned, his passing percentage was very high, but this is even more impressive: he had 79 touches throughout the match and not one was unsuccessful. It’s as if he’s immune to giving the ball away.
He also won the ball back seven times and made three interceptions.
Liverpool Defence
Martin Skrtel was immense last season, a true colossus in Liverpool’s defence and proved that once again today. He made 7 headed clearances – more than the entire West Brom side put together and precisely a third of the Reds’ total number of headed clearances. Impressive.
Six Liverpool players won every tackle they entered: Martin Skrtel, Glen Johnson, Joe Allen (again near the top), Downing, Suarez and Carragher. Now I’m a bit of a sceptic when it comes to tackling percentages as they can mask the total number of tackles completed. The latter three only made 1 tackle. Fair play to them for winning it but it’s hard to praise when it was just the single tackle completed.
Seven Baggies’ players completed 100% but four of them only attempted one tackle. The overall tackle success % rate for both sides was 80 for the Reds and 79 for the victors.
So, as you can see, the stats tell a different story to the match reports you’ve likely read after the final whistle. Liverpool dominated many of the stats (and possession, 59.7% to 40.3) but managed to travel home with a demoralising loss playing on their minds.
As for my Statistical Man of the Match, I’d have to pick Joe Allen. His numbers were impressive and he will likely keep it up throughout the season.
With such a poor opening day result for Liverpool, many fans must be asking, “So, when does the season actually start?”
All Stats taken from the EPLIndex Stats Centre including the New Top Stats area (Suarez shooting image above) that allows you to sort and filter players! Subscribe to the EPLIndex Stats Centre get access to in-depth stats from 2008/09 to 12/13!
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About the Author
Categories: EPL Index Featured Article, EPL Index Match Report, EPL Index Statistical Comparisons, Liverpool
Tags: brendan rodgers, EPL, epl opta stats, EPL Stats, LFC Stats, Liverpool, Steve Clarke, Suarez Stats, WBA 3 LFC 0 Stats, West Bromwich Albion
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well written article ,im sure then percentages would have been a lot higher for certain players if we hadnt dropped our heads and fallen apart , as much as football is a physically demanding sport it also requires mental toughness , something certain players in our team are lacking ,simply because of fear of history repeating its self in games where we dominate and dont take our chances then the opposition scores and we dont get the result our football deserves at times , and if were not carefull that mentality can end up like a disease through out the playing group ,as for the game today when you are trying to implement a style of football into a new squad its always going to be difficult and mistakes will be made , when you play tiki taka football the one thing you cant afford to lose is your midfield , the minute you do you expose your defense to the fullest , specially if the opposition has pace up front ,and thats something we lost today our midfield our pressing ceased and we got caught out and were lucky the result wasnt more that it was , ynwa
Thanks. Yeh I’m currently looking into the number of times Liverpool have lost when conceding the first goal.
If you give stick to Downing for not passing forward, give it to Borini as well. They both apparently made only 3 passes forward. As it is both of the wide forwards, maybe there was something in the system that means they didn’t have options to pass forward? Where did they receive the ball for example?
Fair do’s on the Borini point – did actually miss that. But how poor was Downing, though? Stats aside, he was dreadful again.
Downing was poor, I agree. Yet, so was Kelly behind him, at least going forward. Kelly probably wasn’t giving options for Downing to pass forward as much as Johnson probably gave to Borini.
Also, a player’s performance is always relative, in part at least, to the quality of his ‘direct’ opponent, the system and the opposing system. A look at WBA fullbacks performance might have given a more in-depth look at how Borini and Downing fared, playing in similar positions in our system.
Not saying Downing wasn’t poor. Just that it wasn’t the whole picture and picking out just Downing seems a bit easy with a hint of confirmation bias in the analysis.
There were positives in the game – Joe Allen’s game and it seems Pepe is back in form. What I didn’t like were the wide players – Downing was too predictable going to his left and Borini wasn’t very involved, the other negative thing is again our finishing – Suarez needs to be better!
Agree with you. Reina seems comfortable again and Allen slotted in straight away – his stats were excellent.
You say we created only one chance before the sending off. What about Ridgewell within the first 40 seconds? You say you dominated the game, completely outrageous. The first half was completely even, then second half we dominated Liverpool out the park. Tell me did you watch the game on Match of the Day or were you there? Because you seem to be just like every other arrogant Liverpool fan, “we are the best team in the country, nobody ever outplays us.” Suarez has all the skill in the world, but what’s the point in playing him in an advanced role when he can’t finish? He’s a creator not a finisher. Do you fancy making an article about how good West Brom actually was?
I actually said that Liverpool dominated the stats, which is what this website and article is about.
As pointed out in the article, the reason as to why WBA dominated in the second half was due to Agger’s sending off. You played well, no doubt about it, but it’s clear that the red card allowed you to create more chances and push LFC further back.
And yes, I watched the match. And the reason why this is a Liverpool article is because I cover Liverpool’s stats for this site – not WBA.
Yet again Gerrard was shocking .Stats mean nothing goals mean everything.WBA were by far the better team and that goes to show where Liverpool are at.Liverpool will not be contesting with the bigger clubs for top four they will at best be fighting for Europa cup spot if they get lucky.
The statistical analysis of Downing supports what I see with my own eyes on the pitch, but so often the stats
This is where statistical analysis falls down imo – when Carragher attempted to barge Lukaku off of the ball and was instead left in a lump on the floor, while WBA were left with a 2 on 1 situation, where do the stats account for that?
Skrtel was “immense” statistically, but was left in a ball on the floor, leading to Agger being sent off – an incident which wouldn’t show up on any stats (and then he also stupidly gave away a penalty directly himself which should surely be reflected somewhere?)
I agree completely. Stats are good to analyze the team performance as a whole, but you can’t judge the performance of a player with stats.
Skrtel had one of the worst days, he was directly responsible for the two penalties that resulted in a goal and a sending off that will affect liverpool in the next games as well. I may be mistaken but even the corner for the first goal was the result of an unneeded clearance by him with no wba player around him and Reina shouting at him to let it go.
Also, using the percentage of forward passes to describe a winger’s performance does not sound like the best idea. A winger opening the game on the sides most of the times won’t have the option for a forward pass, unless he passes it to the fans behind the goal.
Not saying that Downing or Borini had a good game, but I think that if you are making a statistical “analysis” you need to pick the stats that are relevant to each position.
Amazing what stats do. Not sure if you were at the match but what I saw was an open match which West Brom thoroughly deserved to win and did so convincingly. The fact Liverpool went down to 10 was their own fault and the decision was spot on. It’s not often that the ‘smaller’ clubs get those type of decisions go for them which the ‘big’ clubs take for granted. Throw what ever stats you like but the one that maters i West Brom scord three and it could have been a llt more and Liverpool scored nil. Don’t hide behind stats. Liverpol were average.
I don’t get why you’re complaining about an article that clearly states it’s about the stats of Liverpool’s performance and it’s on a stats-based website.
No one is hiding behind stats – I’ve assessed LFC’s stats and put them in an article. What else am I to do?
This article made me laugh! How can this idiot talk about a game using these statistics. Next time try watching the game or even the highlights. Liverpool had a nice 10 minute spell of pressure before WBA scored but up to that point they had just passed it between the back 4!! Suarez could have finished a couple of chances but due to the combination of Mulumbu and Yacob in the middle WBA controlled the whole second half! Perhaps it was a good thing for Agger to get sent off because Shane Long was just embarrasing him. He won nearly every header against the Dane and clearly had him beaten on pace. If it wasnt for the fact he is not a lone striker he might have made more of an Impact on the game. Jack you really need to start going to games your going to comment on so you can at least get your facts right and not rely just on passes completed and headers won to make your next analysis of a game. Or just watch MOTD and you would still do a better job!!
the title of the article is “LFC Statistical Analysis …..”
Instead of calling him “an idiot” just don’t read it and move on to the tabloids. You don’t have to agree to the article, but if you have criticism do it constructively, not venting your frustrations and showing everyone how uneducated you are.
I think you people who are leaving negative comments regarding this article can’t actually read, because if you could you would clearly understand that the article is based and written about the STATISTICAL performance of LIVERPOOL players. It’s not an article written by some muppet with a million team pin badges on his waistcoat in the terraces. If you want that sort of article read The Sun.
Regards
@Matthew_P
Thanks for the support, haha. Hope you enjoyed the article.
Jack – great article fella. 100% spot on re: the lack of activity on the wings. However, i do think this comes down to lack of personnel (i.e borini is never a left winger!) and playing Johnson on the left lacks natural fuidity and balance. A glaring stat to me is the lack of forward passes by Stevie G, couple this with Suarez’s isolation and there were always going to problems. We need more time but we sure as hell need better players too.
Thanks. And I agree with you entirely. The issue with Borini is where would you play him? BR will use a 433 and Suarez will either be played down the middle or on the right.
FYI looking forward to the report on the final match result when Liverpool concede the opening goal…any chance it could go back to Intanbul?
Sorry, no – way too far back!
Very enjoyable teas… Thanks for that!
Looking at stats I think you will find Kelly is not even championship level, as far going forward is concerned. I think he missed the class on crossing.
Though as an old school English battling defender he’s pretty good!
I actually like Martin Kelly at RB but he was poor against WBA. He’s naturally a CB but will always find it tough to play there given his past experience playing for the first team at full-back and the competition in the middle