Liverpool Haven’t Played Anyone Good, Have Had Zero Injuries, & Other Nonsense

Narrative Says No

Alisson Becker has not been injured this season.

The facts are in!

• Liverpool haven’t played anyone good yet.

(If you ignore all the good teams the Reds have played.)

• Liverpool haven’t played anyone good yet ... who were in good form.

(If you ignore all the teams who were in good form.)

• Liverpool haven’t had any injuries.

(If you ignore all the key players out injured long-term, like Alisson, Diogo Jota, Harvey Elliott, Federico Chiesa and several others. None of these are injuries, though. They are perhaps pieces of cheese, or combine harvesters. They can’t be injuries because Narrative Says No.)

• Liverpool shouldn’t have got that penalty, said every time they get a penalty.

(Even the opposition manager this time says: “I understood the decision”.)

• No evidence of David Coote doing anything wrong in Liverpool games.

(If you ignore the half-dozen truly inexplicable decisions, and the iffy data, and if you ignore the trends of all refs who have had run-ins or even constructive criticism from Jürgen Klopp, with a new example this weekend. No one even mentions that Coote worked for the Manchester FA at the Man City complex for four years, either, as why would that affect anything?)

Not Played Anyone Good

Let’s start with ‘Liverpool haven’t played anyone good yet’, and the last 12 games.

The first 10 games saw the Reds win 2.7ppg or the equivalent, at a win-rate of 90% (nine of ten), and an elite xG difference of +1.38.

That also included Man United away (100% home record after one game! – this was pre-chaos) and AC Milan away, so not all easy games on paper. Even Nottingham Forest at home looks harder now than we assumed.

Plus, all League Cup games this season will be against Premier League opposition, not lower league chaff.

The next 12? Look how astonishingly similar the data is:

Look at that list of opposition, to average 2.67ppg, winning 83.3%, with a +1.09 xG Difference per game, and goals for and against that closely match xG for and against. Also, bossing the possession (55%) against almost entirely possession-heavy opponents.

In this period, Chelsea have risen to be title challengers; Arsenal remain title challengers; Leverkusen are 2nd in the Champions League 36-team group, behind Liverpool, while Aston Villa, also beaten, are 3rd; Brighton remain consistently good; Leipzig were top of the Bundesliga when the Reds went there; Real Madrid have caught Barcelona in La Liga by winning six of eight games, either side of coming to Anfield, since early October (better than their first eight games which yielded only five wins); Newcastle continue to get good results against top teams at St James’ Park; Girona remain a pretty good La Liga side, and Southampton, who of course are rubbish, and no one is denying that.

That leaves Man City, who collapsed in a heap after Rodri’s injury, much like he did. (But Liverpool lacked just as many key players in that one-sided game. Except they don’t count, as Narrative Says No.)

Indeed, Liverpool have played more teams who were in the top six at the time this season than there are teams in the top six.

Aston Villa were 6th when playing the Reds, as were Brighton and Brentford.

Man City were 2nd (they’re now 4th), Arsenal 3rd and Chelsea 4th. That’s six, from five spaces with the Reds taking up the very top one. But none of them were any good, or in form, right?

No one currently below mid-table has come to Anfield yet, so all the cannon fodder has yet to be lined up. Lesser teams are obviously generally easier to beat at home than away.

Meanwhile, Liverpool have had to play a team like Man City just three days after playing Real Madrid, with the Reds’ given the 2nd-hardest Champions League task out of the 36 teams before a ball was kicked. The cumulative effort is something I will address below.

As I always say, past wins, consistently good data, and so on, does not mean you won’t hit a rocky patch. But look at that table again. (Or the Champions League table. Or the Premier League table.)

The results, and the underlying data, are all just a mere fraction worse than the first ten games when Liverpool were supposed to have played no one good.

Right, onto the rest.

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