Rubbish Liverpool, The Luckiest Champions Ever!

Awful! Terrible! Boooooo!

I wrote this just before the game, as I wouldn’t have time immediately after. I’ll write something else later!

So did lucky, rubbish Liverpool really deserve to win a 20th league title, to take them further ahead as England’s most successful club in the most popular league in the world?

Did Liverpool, winning the league not in May, as the song goes, but going one better and doing so in April, truly deserve it?

Did Liverpool, averaging over +1.30 xG Difference per game (which is xG created, minus xG conceded), whilst Arsenal, with the 2nd-best underlying numbers, constantly hovered around half that, really deserve it?

(It’s hard to tell, even if +1.30 xG Difference is elite, and better than that of Man City and Arsenal last season, and indeed, better than City’s numbers for their past two titles – +1.19 and +1.22 – which the science of mathematics tells me is below +1.30, but I could be wrong on that.)

Did Liverpool, in a season where up to 12 of the top 23 highest-ranked teams on the European Club Elo Index (as of mid-April 2025) were from the Premier League – and where according to Andrew Beasley, it recently reached English football’s highest ever rating on the vastly historical European Club Elo Index – really deserve it?

Did Liverpool, who also won eight of nine meaningful Champions League games as further evidence of quality (when not fielding the reserves and kids vs PSV), and topping the first ever 36-team group, really prove they were good enough? Weren’t all those Champions League wins just lucky too?

And when navigating both a title challenge and a Champions League challenge (until losing only on penalties to an elite team with the luxury of peaking at the right time), playing only Premier League teams on the way to, and including, the League Cup final (where admittedly, they were poor, and perhaps jaded after said 210 minutes vs PSG). Surely that final defeat proved that Liverpool are rubbish, as they lost a game of football? Good teams don’t lose games of football. Good teams don’t even draw games of football. Good teams only win, every single game. Good teams haven’t lost a game since 1973.

Did Liverpool replacing an “irreplaceable” manager with a guy written off as another doomed Dutch baldie really deserve to lead another non-favourite (a mere 5% chance for the Reds at the outset) to a league title, for the second time in three seasons? (I also thought Jürgen Klopp’s departure was supposed to signal total collapse, and finishing outside the top six, as Gary Neville suggested last summer.) It seems that Liverpool had everything going for them, in facing what people said was the hardest thing to do in football, in replacing a legendary figurehead. Talk about jammy!

Did Liverpool, spending just c.£10m on one single player and opting for continuity and cohesion and fine-tuning (with players they’d previously bought, or developed over time), warrant winning a 20th league championship? (It seems unlikely to me.)

Did Liverpool, with the league’s best creative player, honestly deserve it?

Did Liverpool, with the league’s top scorer (the same man), truly deserve it?

What of Liverpool starting so well after a preseason without almost all of its best players (where having them would logically be very important to a new manager instilling new ideas), due to three international summer tournaments, and one of the best non-international players who shone in preseason (Harvey Elliott) breaking his foot in August, in a season when Liverpool had “no” injuries? What about that says that they deserve to be champions?

Did Liverpool, with all the distracting noise around the Contract Trio, which the media dragged up week after week, and which would unsettle most clubs (some clubs bully and banish players who are yet to sign new deals), truly warrant no.20?

Did Liverpool, whose finishing was a fraction under the xG (a tad unlucky and/or wasteful), and whose goals against were a fraction over the xG (a tad unlucky), succeed with luck and by running hot? The facts suggest the opposite, that there was no luck at all, but you can never know for sure, as numbers-schmumbers.

Did the Reds, who have yet to “lose” a single league game on the xG (in terms of a deficit of -0.6 needed to round up to and equate to a goal between two teams, as it’s closer to -1.0 than to 0.0), merit it, and when the only three xG deficits were the minimal -0.4, -0.2 and -0.1?

(An xG deficit is anything with a negative number, an xG defeat is -0.6 or worse. Last season Man City properly ‘lost’ three games on xG: Aston Villa -1.7, Liverpool -1.1, Forest -1.0. In 2022/23, Man City had four full xG Defeats: Liverpool -1.1, Manchester Utd -1.1, Everton -0.8, Leicester City -0.7, and two more xG deficits, Brighton -0.4, Tottenham -0.1. Prior to lockdown in 2020, Liverpool lost to Watford by -2.0, and before that, more narrowly, but still xG defeats, against Southampton -0.6, Chelsea -0.7 and Wolves -0.7, plus a deficit against Manchester City of -0.2. More followed after the title was won so early, achieved in fewer games than any team had ever managed in a 38-game season. But this historical data may mean nothing, as nothing means anything anymore.)

Weren’t the Reds just lucky that, as well as the upheaval of a new manager and entire coaching staff, they had the upheaval of a new Director of Football, and a totally new football structure? Just as Richard Hughes got lucky at Bournemouth with his buys and appointing Andoni Iraola (what a fluke!), and then got lucky at Liverpool by appointing Arne Slot. The man must carry and a rabbit’s foot in the shape of a four-leaf clover tied to a horseshoe to be that fortunate.

Did Liverpool, with the league’s best keeper over his entire time in England based on the eye-test and also save percentage (and with the fewest goals against this season per 90, at just 0.83), who missed a third of the season due to injuries – in a season when Liverpool had “no” injuries – including missing a raft of the toughest games at a pivotal point in the season, to be replaced by the league’s best no.2, truly deserve it? Weren’t Liverpool just lucky instead? I mean, really lucky?

(Alisson also ranks 1st in the entire league – for all players – in terms of his team’s xG Difference when he plays, +1.53 per 90, which is über-elite, albeit you can only get a reading like this if someone misses a decent chunk of the season, so the ever-presents like Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk are the same as the Reds’ overall average. You can’t compare with/without if you’re never, or rarely, without; but plenty of players have missed one, two or three months.)

Did Liverpool, with reserve keeper Caoimhín Kelleher in goal for tougher-than-average league games against teams as good as Bournemouth, Chelsea, Arsenal (away), Brighton, Aston Villa, Manchester City, Newcastle (away), Fulham (away) and the vital Anfield Mersey derby (as well as Bayer Leverkusen, Real Madrid and RB Leipzig in the Champions League) – and with Southampton away the only ‘easy’ league game he played in – really deserve it, given that they had “no” injuries? (It seems suspicious to me.)

And given that Kelleher was out injured himself when Alisson had to go off in a game, and Liverpool had to send on sub Vítězslav Jaroš for his debut in an away match with a narrow lead, in a season when Liverpool had “no” injuries, did the Reds merit anything, including that win against Crystal Palace? (Where Simon Hooper had given 11 free-kicks against Liverpool before finally giving one to the Reds, five minutes into the second half?)

Did Liverpool just get lucky by having home-grown players like Kelleher, Alexander-Arnold, Curtis Jones, Jarell Quansah, Conor Bradley, Harvey Elliott (bought as a kid), who all contributed at key times? And in a season where even Jayden Danns and the aforementioned Jaroš had to have league minutes? (Tyler Morton got injured when he may have been due a game, and Danns is now out with the increasingly common back stress fracture for teens, while James McConnell missed the first half of the season with injury. And as noted, Elliott broke his foot just when he had his foot in the door, albeit that’s not literally how the fracture occurred.)

Did Liverpool, with the league’s best creative right-back, who also missed a third of the league minutes due mostly to injury and injury-management (in a season when Liverpool had “no” injuries), deserve to win it?

(Trent Alexander-Arnold ranks second in the Premier League for xG Difference while on the pitch, at +1.52 per 90, although again, these can be skewed by the quality of games missed and played in.)

Did Liverpool, with the league’s best defender (arguably its best ever), who is also its most successful progressive passer – overtaking his own full-back teammate on that metric due to more minutes played – really deserve to win it? Two elite ball-players who pass more like the best midfielders, but in defence? Does that sound special? Nah. Sounds lucky.

Did Liverpool, with its alternating left-sided attackers weighing in with over 30 goals between them across all competitions (only one of the goals a penalty, a Cody Gakpo spot-kick at his hold club PSV in the dead rubber), reallydeserve to win it? Luis Díaz was electric and Gakpo was in the form of his life – scoring in every game at Anfield – when he got injured, in a season when Liverpool had “no” injuries.

Did Liverpool, with its hitherto best finisher – and the Premier League’s top ‘shot-monster’ after 33 games (3.77 per 90) having his ribs crushed when fouled (in a not-given DOGSO) in a season when Liverpool had “no” injuries, and thus only playing one-third of the league minutes, really deserve their success? The excellent Bukayo Saka, noted for his absence, has played far more Premier League minutes this season than Diogo Jota.

(Jota also ranks 5th in the Premier League in terms of the xG Difference, +1.42 per 90, when he was on the pitch, so an improvement on the Reds’ numbers when he doesn’t play; and he hasn’t been as sharp since returning from the long layoff.)

Did Liverpool, with the league’s outstanding no.6, who wasn’t even previously a regular no.6, deserve to win the league? (Asking for a friend.)

Did Liverpool, with the league’s best points-per-game player (Alexis Mac Allister, 2.44), really deserve to win the league? I mean, really deserve it? I mean, he can’t even spell his own surname correctly!

Did Liverpool, with the Premier League’s best presser (when adjusted for possession) to the point where he’s in a league of his own, in making nearly twenty percent more pressures than any other player in the top flight, put in a shift to warrant success? (Andrew Beasley’s data on possession-adjusted pressures per 90 has Dominik Szoboszlai way ahead of all other players.)

Did Liverpool with a midfield described on the eve of the season as ‘worse’ and ‘lacking the depth’ of Manchester United’s (Gary Neville again) really merit winning the league?

Did Liverpool’s Captain Colossus deserve credit, given that he was first paired with Jarell Quansah (dropped), then Ibou Konaté, who upped the gears into top form (then got injured by a nasty tackle in a season when Liverpool had “no” injuries), followed by Joe Gomez coming in cold at a key point of the season – and hitting his centre-back peaks of 2020, before he again got injured in a season when Liverpool had “no” injuries – and at various points, Ryan Gravenberch dropping in alongside his compatriot; across a backline that also saw Conor Bradley missing a big chunk of the season (age-related injuries, in a season when Liverpool had “no” injuries) at the same time Alexander-Arnold was also out, and Andy Robertson starting the season injured with no preseason, and at one point all three right-backs injured at the same time (not that Liverpool had any injuries) to the point where Curtis Jones was playing right-back? Does the shifting partnerships Virgil van Dijk had to deal with, and the injuries to left-backs and right-backs, merit anything? (It’s hard to say. Probably not.)

And the Reds, by far the league’s top scorers but mostly without the more functional, Stoke City-style aid of set-pieces, due to lacking a proper set-piece coach (because Arne Slot’s set-piece coach was denied a visa, and thus left behind in the Netherlands) ... well, did they really deserve it? Aren’t the deserved champions of England the team who scores the most goals from corners?

Did Liverpool, who played what, with added time, amounted to 90 full minutes with 10 men after an incorrect red card (a clear foul by Andy Robertson but widely acknowledged as a mistaken DOGSO by a rookie ref at Anfield), when already a goal down, and come back to draw, show the character to merit the crown? (And when the clearest DOGSO of the season was not given when David Coote, in, thankfully, his last ever game, furiously waved away a drag, trip and haul-back on Mo Salah as “no foul” at the Kop end, as ... well, you tell me?)

And did Liverpool, awarded around 25% fewer foul free-kicks than the top-flight norm, and which fell starkly after going top of the table but more pertinently, around the time Coote was sacked – but where the Reds were still punished at a normal rate for making fouls, and an abnormally high rate given the possession dominance – truly prove they are the best? Didn’t the PGMOL just hand it to their beloved Reds, on a plate?

Did Liverpool, who admittedly didn’t rack up an excess of big wins with ‘garbage goals’ (that mean little once you’re 3-0 up), deserve the title? Don’t you need to win 5-0 and 6-0 and 7-0 to be good champions? Maybe even an 8-0? Does having more very healthy 2-0 wins than the norm for champions, and with every single win merited on the xG, make for underserved winners? (Everton fans surely agree.)

What about when going unbeaten for a hefty six months of the league season? And when the only defeats were to teams currently 4th and 9th in the table? Was that run just lucky?

And what about taking six points from Man City, six from Bournemouth, six from Brentford, six from a fast-improving Wolves (as well as six each from all of the current bottom four, to remove the accusation “but you couldn’t beat Southampton!”), four from Newcastle, four from Aston Villa, four from Man United, four from Everton (included in terms of the nastiness of those games, if not their quality), and after one just game against them so far, having taken all three from Chelsea, Crystal Palace and Brighton? Does this sound like a team that deserves the title? Or is it more like the name of a Kylie Minogue song? (No, not ‘Padam Padam’.)

But did Liverpool winning games – whilst keeping clean sheets – against Bayer Leverkusen, Real Madrid, PSG, Manchester City, Manchester City (again), Manchester Utd, Newcastle, Bournemouth, Bournemouth (again), Aston Villa, Bologna, RB Leipzig, Girona, Brentford, Brentford (again), Crystal Palace, West Ham, Leicester, Ipswich and very much last of all, Everton, really amount to much? (Lucky lucky lucky.)

Did winning away at AC Milan by two goals and away at Spurs by three goals and home to Leverkusen by four goals and away at West Ham by five goals and scoring six in that away game at Spurs all show that, actually, the Reds are pretty mediocre? It seems so, alas. If only we could find some evidence that Slot’s Liverpool were worthy title winners due to the quality of teams they beat and their dominance in almost all games. (Sadly, such evidence does not exist.)

Did Liverpool beating the reigning English champions … and then beating the reigning German champions … and then beating the reigning Spanish champions – who were also the reigning European champions … and then beating the reigning English champions again … and then beating the reigning French champions, simply show that, counterintuitively, Liverpool were just total and utter shite? (I think you can agree that it does, as this is 2025, folks. Grab a hard-hat.)

Did the Reds, in seeing off far more-expensive Man City first, then Christmas dark horses and insane spenders Chelsea (who could have gone top), then New Year high-fliers and massive xG over-performers Nottingham Forest – who had a home six-pointer versus the Reds that they failed to win (and held on against an onslaught for a draw) – then the early spring assault of Arsenal “hunting Liverpool down”, actually not see anyone off in the title race? (Alas, it seems there’s just no way of knowing. I tried asking the question to the most advanced online AI tool, and it said, “Alas, it seems there’s just no way of knowing”.)

Could it be that Liverpool, in having the most points by far in the Premier League, and the best underlying numbers by farin the Premier League, and by being ranked the no.1 team in Europe on the Elo Index, having topped the Champions League mega-group, all go to show that we’re talking about truly extreme levels of luck here? (The data may indeed suggest it to be so, along with Global Freezing, the flatness of Earth, and St Winifred’s School Choir having more no.1 hits than The Beatles, whose lead singer and main songwriter, Ringo Starr, shot JFK.)

How could a team that choked, slumped, slipped and dipped in the run-in deserve the title – the cheek of it! – when, after an incredible first 20 games of the season, they totally collapsed with 10 wins, two draws a single defeat from the next 13? Surely such a terrible league run, that happens to extrapolate to a 94-point season – and that would outstrip all but a handful of the best-ever points tallies – proves that the Reds were undeserving champions? (Many would say that yes, it is so.)

And did Arne Slot, breaking records for the best-ever start to a managerial career in English football history, and by his 50th game, stand way ahead of any other Liverpool manager for wins in their first 50s, in a season where his record in the main two competitions (Premier League and Champions League) ==is played 42, won 32, == , just prove fortunate?

Indeed, it seems that it’s just not possible to quantify anything Liverpool did in 2024/25, other than to say that they were rubbish, lucky, backed by the PGMOL, and that they bought the title. Just like we know that Bigfoot was Ringo Starr’s accomplice on the grassy knoll in 1963, we can tell what’s true because we feel it’s true.

Finally, go through the squad, and it’s just not very good.

Alisson, the best keeper since he arrived in England seven years ago, but very good; Virgil van Dijk, still the best centre-back who arrived the season before, but not very good; Mo Salah, the most prolific player in England since he joined Liverpool in 2017, but not very good; Trent Alexander-Arnold, record-breaking full-back assister and wanted by Real Madrid, but not very good; Alexis Mac Allister, World Cup winner with Argentina, but not very good; Ryan Gravenberch, Ajax’s youngest-ever player, Dutch international at 18, but not very good; Dominik Szoboszlai, captain of Hungary and 53 caps already, but not very good; Cody Gakpo, star of a World Cup and a Euros, and a player of the year in Holland, but not very good; Diogo Jota, nearly 50 caps for Portugal, but not very good; Ibou Konaté, World Cup finalist for France, but not very good; Luis Díaz, twister of blood than a dizzy phlebotomist, but not very good; Curtis Jones, now playing for England, but not very good; Conor Bradley, aged 21 and 24 international caps already, but not very good.

None of them any good. At all.

Caoimhín Kelleher, Andy Robertson, Harvey Elliott, Joe Gomez, Jarell Quansah, Wataru Endō, Kostas Tsimikas, Darwin Núñez and other veterans of Champions League successes and Champions League finals, and/or title successes and title near-misses, and/or domestic cup final wins – no good whatsoever. (Federico Chiesa, star of a successful Italian Euros, can’t get a game. How rubbish must he be?!)

Not one single good player.

I mean, just imagine what will be possible when Liverpool get good?