Brentford vs. Liverpool: *Bumper* Post-Match Analysis

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

Well, away at a physical, direct side with double-figures for injuries within the squad (by half-time), and after 44 minutes, Liverpool hadn’t been awarded a single free-kick; and it was still just one by the 67th minute. Liverpool had conceded nine to one by half-time despite two-thirds of the possession and not being the overly physical side.

To therefore, win the game 4-1 was remarkable, with every single player offering something; with Michael Oliver, not normally so bad (albeit less good since he started taking money from the Saudis to ref over there), allowed Brentford players to foul and injure the Reds.

Curtis Jones was injured when tackled from behind. Play on.

Then you had Christian Nørgaard recklessly jumping into Diogo Jota to clatter him in the leg and face. Play on. Stretchered off.

David Coote, as the VAR, ignored his third blatant penalty to Liverpool in his short, grim career, and his second in recent games. It must be nice to be paid lots of money to sit in a warm room on the outskirts of London and watch the telly, saying “I didn’t see anything” if anyone asks. Luis Díaz’s foot was kicked from underneath him, much like the penalty Palace got against Liverpool. Play on.

[EDIT: I even forgot about Jota being wrestled to the ground in the box at a corner, as per normal, and Coote saying the comical “mutual holding”. Play on.]

It makes you paranoid when you see that a single Liverpool player (Darwin Núñez) has as many bookings this season for dissent as the entire Man City side, who swarm refs. (Oliver is pretty good for Liverpool, but like Anthony Taylor, mostly at Anfield. All the other refs are not good for Liverpool, home or away.) Why aren’t City booked for their constant dissent?

Brentford ended the game winning 18 free-kicks, and “win” them they do; every trick in the book to get the decision from weak homer refs, to launch it into the box. (Both Wataru Endo and Alexis Mac Allier conceded a lot of cheap free-kicks that wouldn’t be free-kicks to the Reds, as the stats showed.)

If Thomas Frank is on the Liverpool shortlist then it’s the wrong shortlist; he should be on the “Smells Like Hodgson” shortlist. Good on a small budget, but crap football. He’s major Moyes, absolute Allardyce, pure Pulis, and celebrates after his own players get betting bans.

Andrew Beasley has already shown that in league games since 2016, with just 0-2 absentees/injuries, Jürgen Klopp’s Reds have plundered 2.46ppg, in 89 matches, which is basically title-winning form across two full seasons’ worth of data.

But the points per game drops about 10-12% with every two or three additional absentees, to 2.24ppg (84 games), then to 1.96ppg (93 games), then to 1.67ppg (24, a smaller sample, thankfully).

Even with six or seven out injured, the form is top four.

But get past eight, and it extrapolates to 63 points, which is still better than many of the tallies posted before he arrived, but would have meant a 6th-placed finish last season.

(So even Liverpool with up to 15 players out injured average the same sort of points as Man United might get this season, which is currently a 64-point pro rata extrapolation.)

For this game it was seven, with Mo Salah an eighth, in a way, as only fit for the bench. That said, he came on and looked sharp after missing eight games.

There were four first XI players not starting due to injury, and four who are young and promising and may have featured, and two elder statesmen who do suffer a lot of injuries.

By half time, it was 10 Liverpool players out injured, maybe an 11th with Darwin Núñez also taken off.

Then, add a game Wednesday, Sunday (League Cup final), Wednesday (only the FA Cup), Saturday (Forest away), before eight days’ rest until Man City rock up at Anfield. [EDIT: my fixture calendar doesn’t have anything listed, but seems the UEFA Cup is due that week. I’m not used to this weird format!]

This game felt more like a case of who had intact hamstrings, yet not a lot has been made of the club’s rolling crisis, compared to Man City having Kevin de Bruyne and a couple of others out.

For Liverpool, keeping players fit is always the key; but it’s difficult, with so many games, and an intense style of play that is what gives the side its edge a lot of the time.

Missing key players is fine; missing lots of players, key or not, is logically going to cost you. That Liverpool fought Brentford and the officials (again) was testament to what a win this was.

This season, the squad feels bigger, deeper. The emergence of so many young players has given that depth, but obviously they’re nowhere near their peaks yet.

With the aid of some comical defending, Liverpool scored four brilliant goals, as well as other moments of quality.

The majority of my analysis and the analysis of the others follows for subscribers only.