A Midwinter Stroll: Liverpool 4 Ipswich (Luckily) 1

Liverpool’s Thrashing of Ipswich Lessened by the Reliably Terrible Tierney

Paul Tomkins, Andrew Beasley, Daniel Rhodes and other TTT regulars will give their thoughts on the match for 24 hours after the game, so the article received via email is unlikely to be the final version. There's statistics from the match and videos too.

Post-Match Thoughts

Paul Tomkins

At 4-0 and coasting, presumably we had another case of both players coming in high? Look at Endo, just asking for it.

We’re now around 30 games into Paul Tierney’s now nearly weekly VAR ‘work’ on Liverpool games, and he’s yet to make an overturn (that wasn’t offside) to favour the club; but three against, a fourth when he was absent when another debutant ref wrongly sent off Alexis Mac Allister.

Today, as with the litany of horrors from Stuart Attwell as shown in a recent piece, it’s another predictable officiating shitshow at Anfield.

Thankfully it only mattered for goal difference, as Julio Enciso then got the assist for the late consolation, but goal difference might be important.

Is a knee/hip in the face with added forearm smash, when jumping into an opponent, not dangerous and serious foul play? Not in the wacky PGMOL world where Liverpool are concerned. Not necessarily intentional, but definitely reckless and dangerous. The photos below don’t do justice to the force of it.

Bet big money, if there are such markets, on Tierney giving Liverpool nothing, and a new ref making weird decisions at the Kop end. It may come back to haunt the Reds as it did in the title race last season, when Jeremy Doku came in high and Alexis Mac Allister was flattened, and then David Coote was rushed into action. How legit is that lad, by the way? Sorted.

Anyway, that aside, the game was a joyful stroll. More on how dominant Liverpool were, and have been all season (but where it’s getting better) later in the piece.

I said this would be the weekend Notts Forest start to fall away, and right on cue, they’re cooked. Simply by looking at the xG Differences overall, and per game, I could tell that Man City were struggling before they collapsed, and that Chelsea were not title contenders. The same was true of Forest.

Arsenal are just about hanging in there on the underlying numbers, which are about half as good as Liverpool’s; they grabbed a win against the odds, albeit only against the odds until their game was levelled up at 10 vs 10, and they got the winner. Their problems were last week.

For those who hadn’t seen the xG tracking I’ve been doing, the Reds have been getting better as the season has gone along, while everyone else’s gets worse or stays mediocre.

If you average an xG creation to concession difference of +1.46 per game, as the Reds have been this season, you are likely to win most games.

Today? Early xG balances suggest ... +1.47.

Of course, the late xG Against should not have occurred had the ref and VAR done their job, and had Liverpool not had a messy set-piece structure after all five subs were made.

But this was another good weekend, in a near-perfect season so far.

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