It’s been a busy week for Liverpool FC and a busy week on TTT. I’ve written a free article here, and Free Friday follows below, with links to the various pieces that have appeared on the site, and, as usual, some of the best subscriber comments from the past seven days. (I don’t allow comments on this newsletter, which is designed to be read via email, even if it can also be read via a web browser. Commenting is for subscribers only.)
The Craziest of Crazy Seasons Continues
Great teams can cope with a few bad decisions from officials and a few injuries, but take both of those "bad luck" factors to extreme levels and it can seriously diminish the results of any team.
After all, the current Liverpool team is not the one that Jürgen Klopp and Michael Edwards assembled; it is a collection of spare parts, stand-ins, kids and compromises. If you took the four fastest 100m runners from a relay squad, the next-fastest four sprinters would not be as fast. It’s logical. They also probably wouldn’t be as in-synch when it came to passing the baton.
I won't go over the bad refereeing and VAR decisions of 2020/21 again – you can find them on the main TTT site (including as part of my last big free article) – but we know that they've been unusually high even if only comparing against previous seasons for Liverpool. In previous seasons it’s mostly been an issue of a lack of penalties for the foreign strikers and the occasional offside armpit nonsense; this season it’s been a whole clusterfuck of officiating madness.
While the really bad decisions have dried up a little, obviously they denied the Reds points earlier in the season that would otherwise have helped the team pull away at the top. If you have some leeway then there’s less pressure; just as it’s often easier to take chances when you’re 3-0 up than when you haven’t scored in several games.
But the injury issue isn't going away. Just as some return to full fitness, others are crocked.
In a piece Andrew Beasley wrote for The Liverpool Echo he noted that,
“… last season … Liverpool never had more than five men absent, and even that only happened for four of the 57 matches in a pandemic-ravaged campaign. The contrast with 2020/21 could not be more pronounced.
"The Reds have been missing at least five players for their last 19 matches in a row, and an average of 5.8 per game for the season as a whole…
“Klopp has been deprived of at least six of his squad due to injury or illness for almost two-thirds of the season, with that number of players absent for 21 matches in total. In other words, a degree of handicapping which only took place in eight of the 213 matches from the previous four seasons in total has occurred eight times since mid-December.
“And there have been six games in 2020/21 where at least eight of the squad were missing, a previously unheard level of absenteeism for the Liverpool manager to deal with.”
But it’s not just the number of injuries but the quality of players too.
Liverpool could have been without a different six players throughout 2020/21 – Nat Phillips, Neco Williams, Kostas Tsimikas, Divock Origi, Adrian and Xherdan Shaqiri - and if everyone else was fit, no one would probably even have noticed, beyond a slight lack of cover. In a normal world, at least half of those players wouldn't even make the matchday 18 (albeit two more subs are temporarily allowed).
That would still be six absentees, but to lose so many top players for long periods of time – often due to freak knee injuries – is just insane bad luck.
These are also mostly not the more avoidable muscle injuries. Liverpool have had very few hamstring injuries in a season that seems designed to create hamstring injuries.
While you cannot avoid all muscle injuries, and the risk increases with the greater number of games in a shorter space of time, Liverpool have been hit by six knee injuries – from terrible tackles and unfortunate collisions – and have lost three elite centre-backs to ligament damage before the halfway point of the season; two of them before a third of the campaign was even completed. Twice Liverpool have lost two players to long-term injuries in the same game. Ligament injuries, from what I can tell speaking to an expert, are not really related to workload and fatigue.
You can maybe survive the loss of a couple of essential players if there's enough quality and versatility in the squad; and in Liverpool's case, there is. This is not like Spurs missing Harry Kane and almost no one else, and falling apart. Even then, match-winners and game-changers obviously add to your ability to win games. They help provide a sense of belief to your side, and can be dispiriting for opponents to face up to.
Right now, Klopp’s team is very small without its tall players, just as it's lacking pace without several of its fastest players. It is like the second-string 100m relay team.
You can still win games with even 10 first team players missing. But you won't win anywhere near as many. Over the long term you will tend to do less well, as elite players can add that extra few percent each game. And the more players out, the greater the workload on the few who remain fit.
Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez, Diogo Jota, Thiago, Naby Keita, Joel Matip, Xherdan Shaqiri, Kostas Tsimikas and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain have all missed huge chunks of the season; Alisson, Trent Alexander-Arnold, James Milner, Jordan Henderson Sadio Mané and Fabinho have been beset by repeated problems, including a few of those (and others) having the addition of Covid-19.
In some cases, those players are only deputies, but in many cases they are key men. And at some points both the key men and their deputies have been out. When you get down to the bare bones – not just the squad players but the fringe squad players – you lose so much in quality and experience. You lose the interconnected nature of a well-oiled machine. A raw youngster can be carried by ten senior players; three or four youngsters or rookies and a couple of journeymen means you are very vulnerable.
The other day I tweeted that:
The graph below, by Andrew Beasley – which I asked him to create based on his Echo article – shows clearly how different this season has been, with double the rolling average number of injuries to any of Klopp's previous campaigns. Average four injuries per game (as Liverpool often did when averaging 98 points a season over 24 months and winning the Champions League) and you might still be okay, if things go your way, and especially if they are not the main men; average eight, and you're screwed.
The efforts of previous two seasons have probably taken their toll as well, with the players also clearly missing the fans, who can be that 12th man (a cliché, but true). Several players are running on fumes; others are not available. Rotation is difficult, stuck in this vicious cycle.
To compete with Manchester City, Liverpool need most of their best players to be available (as was the case in 2018/19 and 2019/20), given that City have spent more on defenders in recent years than Liverpool have spent on their entire starting XIs of late.
The Reds are missing most of the players they have invested big money in – the world-class investments. Without those players, it is probably not a top-four team, but a team who would be fighting to finish in the top six. With them it is a title-winning, Champions League-winning team. We know that. That’s a fact. The squad is actually better this season (with the additions superior to those who departed), but the injuries are too much to overcome.
Without adjusting the figures for inflation (with inflation likely to be a lot more complicated this season with deflation likely due to Covid-19 spending cuts), the Reds’ 20 players in the matchday squad against Brighton cost £207m.
The eight players missing cost £317m.
And while you can point out that the Brighton team was cheaper, it was a team. It had the experience, shared knowledge and understanding of being a regular team and not a collection of strangers and stand-ins. That well-drilled nature makes all the difference, although as underdogs they could play on Liverpool’s recent home jitters, as the lack of a crowd clearly takes away one of the big bonuses of Anfield (when there’s a good team to get behind).
Liverpool fielded a team the other night that was as small as any I have in my records going back five years: under 5’10” (177cm) on average outfield height. So, basically, a team of James Milners, having been a team of Jordan Hendersons in previous seasons.
Brighton averaged out at over 6ft (almost 184cm), and bar two small attackers, had eight outfield players who collectively averaged at 186cm (6’1”), while Liverpool only fielded one single player (bar the keeper) who was taller than 6’0” or 182cm. Basically, Liverpool had Nat Phillips and Jordan Henderson to defend corners.
I haven’t checked the average height for Burnley, but you know they are big. Indeed, the teams near the bottom, who are taking points off Liverpool, are often the big bruisers. This is a problem Liverpool had rectified, but has only returned due to injuries. (Ditto, breaking down packed defences was an eradicated issue that has only returned due to absentees.)
Brighton play good football, but they are built like Burnley or Stoke or Watford; and not just tall, but often built like brick shithouses, too. They would be a top team, but they lack a finisher – although they got a flukey deflected goal at Anfield.
I’ve been noting since the late days of Brendan Rodgers in 2014 and 2015 how a team lacking height will struggle; and even a team as good as Man City fell apart when fielding smaller centre-backs last season. You are always vulnerable to the set-piece, or to the randomness of route-one play, where the ball can bounce anywhere from flick-ons.
You can never get comfortable in games if you don’t have that solid diamond of commanding keeper, commanding centre-backs and commanding defensive midfielder. The others can be small and tricky players, but those four (unless you have height in other areas, such as a giant centre-forward for set-pieces at both ends) need to be imposing. (In other words, a Javier Mascherano or Claude Makélélé as a holding midfielder is less of an issue if you have Peter Crouch or Didier Drogba up front, and/or some other six-footers in midfield.)
In the Premier League, with its abiding route-one emphasis, you need at least 3-4 bodyguards in the team, who can also play football if you don’t want to sacrifice ability. You need them to defend set-pieces and attack set-pieces, as well as contesting long-balls. Liverpool spent a lot of their budget on those types (van Dijk, Matip and Fabinho, allied to the commanding Alisson in goal), and then won everything going; and now those types are out injured.
Two more have arrived, although Ben Davies is ‘only’ 6’1” and more of a cultured defender; Kabak looks more of a bruiser (with pace and skill), but he’s only 20, and will make rash challenges based on his career so far, and based on the records of most 20-year-old centre-backs. Neither of the new guys will be well-drilled in the Liverpool way of playing, so that’s another potential hiccup for the next few months. But they may offer a bit more height to deal with set-pieces, which are where a third of all goals come from.
While he’s still settling in, I’m also not sure how anyone can fail to see what Thiago offers. He came into the side when non match-fit after a shocking kneecapper by Richarlison, after the side had already lost its way against West Brom and Newcastle. He’s not playing in Liverpool’s normal midfield, or anything close to the normal XI.
He has kept the ball very well, moved it quickly, beaten opponents with skill, but he’s playing in a side missing 5-8 key players. It's really a lazy kind of “correlation doesn’t equal causation” mistake to link him to Liverpool’s problems. He's playing in a side that has no physical presence to help him, as a smaller playmaker. But even so, his passing has been excellent. He may not be fully on the right wavelength with everyone else yet, but the team is a jumble of pieces right now. (The only issue I have with Thiago is that he slides into too many tackles, the timing of which has often been off, but this is less of a problem if he’s playing as a no.8 and not a no.6. Also, in some recent games he only has to look at the ref to be penalised.)
The lack of physicality in the team puts a lot of pressure and breeds nervousness when defending set-pieces and crosses, and also, gives Liverpool zero output from the corners they win, which saps belief. As I said a few weeks ago, Liverpool have gone from being elite at both ends on set-pieces to mid-table or worse. If there was nothing else that the absent players provided, that alone could be causing the big drop-off in points. But of course, the absent players are also fast and skilful, and offer beautiful long passing (van Dijk and Fabinho) and goals (Jota and Mané).
Since that piece a few weeks ago, Liverpool have not scored from set-pieces. The great possession and attacking play can win countless corners, but there’s almost no point in sending them into the box. And the team has to sense that. Even the commentator on BT Sports could see the physical mismatch in midweek.
Opponents see no van Dijk, no Fabinho, no Matip, no Gomez and no Alisson, and think “we have a chance here”. Because they do. Liverpool can be bullied – not because they are weak and meek, but because they are like brave featherweights boxing bloody-big heavyweights. You could have given Trent Alexander-Arnold a stepladder and he still would not have dealt with Dan Burn, 6’7” (and solid with it!), for the winning goal.
There’s still a lot of quality in this Liverpool team, but it lacks the X-factor that comes from many of the missing players; the extra dimensions. You can say that Gomez and Matip are not as good as van Dijk, because van Dijk is the best in the world; but Gomez and Matip are excellent, and the drop-off in any club between their best players and their 6th-choices will be huge. Nat Phillips has done really well for a player who was supposed to be playing in the Championship this season; Rhys Williams has done really well for a young lad who was 7th or 8th choice at the start of the season.
The Reds will have to fight for a top four finish and hope of an outside chance at the title if a win can be achieved against Manchester City, but the good news is that – surely – many of these players will be fit for next season and it won’t be as mad as this season.
Players like Thiago and Jota (as well as the two new centre-backs) will be more settled into the team patterns, and unless there’s another crazy bout of injuries, this is a team and a squad that can compete for the major honours once again. But it can only be judged on something approaching its best XI; it’s reserves are not going to win any titles on their own, unless it’s with the U23 team.
Anyway, onto Free Friday, and don’t forget to scroll down to the bumper list of articles we’ve published this week from some excellent writers.
Best posts of the week:
Chosen by Chris Rowland and Daniel Rhodes.
1 – Jeff, writing on Transfer Deadline Day, on Liverpool’s centre-backs situation:
If you have a business plan, you stick to it, because once you start to deviate from the way you do business, you are on the road to ruin. The reality of Liverpool is simple. The club will only buy players that it wants at a price the club deems reasonable and the lad wants to come to Liverpool and play for wages the club is willing to pay. If someone wants too much money for a player, Liverpool says no. If a lad wants wages that Liverpool deem out of line, the club says no. If a lad really does not want to play for Jürgen Klopp and Liverpool but wants a pay day in Liverpool, the club says no. I do not want Liverpool to pay over the odds to bring in a player and I do not want the club to over pay a player and I do not want the club to bring in a player who really does not want to be in Liverpool but is coming for a payday.
The flaw in JoeP’s world is that he ignores the fact that some lads the club may want simply are not available in the world of FSG and he ignores the fact that a sane transfer policy has underpinned the success of Liverpool in the transfer market. The issue is not whether or not FSG can finance bringing in a player but the question is does bringing in a player fit the way Liverpool does business which JoeP ignores.
Could it be that Preston waited until the last minute hoping to up the price and avoid Davies leaving for 0. The story in regard to Davies is he was about to sign one of those pre-contract contracts with Celtic and this prompted Preston to talk about selling him to Celtic which opened the door for Liverpool. In regard to Kabak you can find an endless number of stores in German going back at least to last summer that Liverpool wanted to bring him to the club and Schalke said NO. Please always remember that the club has to want to sell a player for Liverpool to potentially buy a player.
I posted any number of times that I believed that las day or two of this window would be wild because clubs who need money or needed to sell a player would suddenly become far more amenable to selling a player and this seemingly is what happened with Davies and potentially some other center backs such as Kabak.
2 – Mobykidz reflecting after transfer deadline day passed:
Liverpool’s season has not finished yet. So its too early to put our transfer decisions into some sort of context. What is not difficult to place is the three season ending injuries to three centre backs. Each though was a different sort of injury two of which happened during a game and another that did not.
But without criticism or blame we now have another season where Joel Matip misses a huge part of a season, Klopp reassuringly saying he will be back and other players filling gaps.
Let me be clear this was not Matip’s fault because he’d clearly been playing whilst unfit. Klopp played him and we did not have a choice with Fabinho’s injury. But the words Matip and injured are as synonymous as Naby and injured. I think both are super talented players but the system comes first and even I have to admit the time has come to face replacing both with lads who are no where near as brittle. Its not the season ending injuries but the continuous niggling injuries that mean they miss a couple of games here and there. The Naby situation is very odd in how consistent his injuries are.
Its not a sign of disloyalty but we have had a couple of seasons where injury track records have impacted us and a 25 man squad has felt like a 23 strong squad instead. I am sure there are raised eye brows when some of the usual suspects don’t turn up. I love to support the guys and give them every chance to flourish but the team comes first and every great manager has to make a decision about cutting players from the squad.
Klopp likes stability and knows his guys. He likes Matip. He’s a superb defender and with Davies and Kabak it buys us time to get everybody fit for a busy 2021-22. Not withstanding VvD playing the Euros and an expectation he stays fit. But I think it might be time to make a profit and move Matip on and free up a space for a Kabak or more experienced alternate. We need someone who can give us 30 games a season as a starter or off the bench. Joe and Virgil need that next season to ensure we do not place too much stress on their recovering bodies. I’m not sure Matip, as he gets older, will be any less brittle. I might be wrong. But doubt it.
On Naby the same applies. I love what he could be. But the medical department has spent years trying to get to the bottom of his niggling injuries. Again others have to pick up his absence but thankfully Curtis Jones has grown into his role and more. Naby it feels is coming to a decision point. And Klopp may have to move him on, plus I suspect Minamino, permanently to raise funds and free up two slots in the squad for the kind of emerging talent that can refresh this squad. Citeh will only get stronger.
I think we need to refresh our squad in areas where having better and fitter players will remove the strain of the rest. Easier said than done. We also have Gini possibly moving on. So it seems there might be some big changes coming but actually the core of the squad will remain as VvD, Joe, etc return. But with Matip, Minamino and Naby I think FSG and Michael Edwards will need to think long and hard about each to strengthen the squad. Each is a great player but for whatever reason it just does not seem to work out for them in terms of breaking into the first team either due to injury or form.
I’m torn but think the squad could be stronger if we found good alternatives. But its sods law that the injury curse could just extend to any replacements. I’d hate to do Michael Edwards job. But I think the summer will be huge in shaping this team.
3 – Stevenson1988’s very funny response to some transfer gossip!:
“Aston Villa’s 17-year-old English midfielder Carney Chukwuemeka is being monitored by Manchester United and Liverpool.”
Good luck with that one Jamie Webster!
4 – JonnyBGood on the need for centre-backs to have experience:
Agree with your assessment Paul, there’s lots of evidence to support your theory regarding maturity of centre-backs in their mid-twenties. Three other players who played at a decent level – two for their countries and all former Liverpool reserves, are Conor Coady (holding midfield to centre-backs, although he did play the odd game for our u23’s in that position); Daniel Ayala developed into a decent defender in his mid twenties and so did Mikel San Jose who left for Bilbao. He went on to play for Spain in his mid to late twenties. He’s a prime example of a slow ‘big fella’ but his ability to read the game and use his body made up for his lack of pace.
I haven’t seen more than a few youtube highlights of Ben Davies but I watched and listened with interest to Steven Warwick’s assessment of him. I have a good feeling about him. He’s the perfect age and although no Premier League experience I think he will prove to have the skill set to make the step up. On the other hand I thought Merson talked utter drivel on Sky Sports when he inferred that Kabak was a poor player because his team sat at the bottom of the Bundesliga. I seem to recall we signed Mark Wright from Derby when they sat at the foot of the table and got relegated and then there are all the other ‘hopeless’ players that got relegated with their clubs that we signed…. Robbo and Gini spring to mind!
Kabak whilst seemingly having the required physicality and speed to cope with the pace and power of some Premier League strikers may need a little more time settle in due to his inexperience but then again Joe Gomez was pretty impressive as soon as he was given game time and but for his succession of injuries might have been the complete centre-back now…I recall him having Neymar in his pocket in his England debut too. I think I’m right on that one?
Time will tell but I think it was great business done at a very difficult time.
5 – Tash is excited about the Reds’ signing of Kabak:
Massively excited for the Kabak signing as he seems to have so much potential. I too think he looks taller than his ‘official’ 6ft 1 and would also say that his solid build goes a good way toward negating any loss in height. I’ve watched him a bit since we were first linked (pretty much just because he’s Turkish and was heavily linked with us) and can see that, ignoring any momentary loss of temper, he’s not easily pushed off the ball and not easily rattled. The acid test will be how that translates to the Premier League. I think he’ll be fine though. He perhaps needed that episode to learn the lesson that the opposition will look for every way to get the better of him. He’s come out and said himself that on that occasion lost the battle inside his head.
He had a very good breakthrough season at Galatasaray where standards may be lower, but tempers can and do often fray.
The fact he left for Germany immediately, when so many Turkish players stay far too long, choosing to lap up the local acclaim and the more than decent wages instead of testing themselves abroad, tells you that he has ambition to make it to the top.
He followed that with an excellent season at Stuttgart and then, moving on again, he’s looked as good as can be expected in a Schalke side who are nailed to the bottom of the Bundesliga. That experience will have gotten him used to adversity and pressure and will have taught him that, no matter how good you are personally, football is not always a bed of roses. And while the Bundesliga is maybe not as tough as the Premiership he’ll be more than accustomed to coming up against big, tough players.
I think we may well have got ourselves a bargain. If not, we’ve taken a very small and therefore measured gamble.
As Klopp said, we have 2 potential fairytale stories in Kabak and Davies. I’m looking forward to seeing how both unfold.
6 – Beez discussing the vagaries of finishing in football:
Whether this will cheer you up, but it helps keep me believing…
In Liverpool’s last eight league games (from WBA onward) they’ve had 18 clear-cut chances while allowing nine. However, they have scored five of theirs, while conceding from four of the opponents’. The United game was the only one of the eight where the opposition had more than we did.
We’re not playing well on the whole, but finishing is absolutely killing us. We missed three CCCs against Newcastle, plus big chances to go a goal up against United, Burnley and Brighton… I suppose we just have to hope that injury and team fatigue don’t prevent the small margins from swinging back in our favour.
Articles published since last Friday, with excerpts:
Mon. Feb. 1st:
Post-Match Analysis: West Ham 1-3 Liverpool, by Daniel Rhodes.
Team Stats:
After attempting 17 shots, 17 shots and then 27 shots in three goalless matches for Liverpool, they then proceed to take exactly 14 against Spurs and West Ham – producing six goals. Random variation right before your eyes, and thankfully it’s moved back in our favour. Especially when you consider the quality of finishes.
All About Winning: What Liverpool Can and Should Do to Win Within New Brexit Rules, by Paul Grech.
It is now imperative to get to talent before others.
To be in a better position to do so, the club should set up a network of youth football clubs all across Britain – including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland becomes all the more important – similar to the one that had been in place with St. Joseph’s.
A club like Liverpool will have dozens of scouts following football all across the country but this network would take matters to a higher level. It would extend Liverpool’s area of influence and visibility well beyond what is currently possible with a scouting network.
Tues. Feb. 2nd:
2020/21 Premier League | Matchweek 22 | Brighton Preview | Anfield, by Gary Fulcher.
February is filled with some high profile matches for the Reds, with Manchester City heading to Anfield on Sunday, followed by a trip to Leicester on the 13th before the Champions League resumes with the last 16 first leg tie against RB Leipzig on the 16th, although where that match will be played is unknown given the current travel restrictions in place.
After Leipzig, there’s the small matter of the Merseyside derby at Anfield on the 20th with some scores to settle following the reverse fixture at Goodison earlier in the season. The Reds then see out February with a trip to Sheffield Utd on the 28th.
Liverpool’s Dramatic Long Night Of The Centre-Backs, by Paul Tomkins.
Aside from goalkeeper, centre-back is the hardest position to come through in, because it takes the longest to perfect. Fikayo Tomori at Chelsea was getting game-time last season (17 matches) after two prior loan spells, but at 23 he’s out on loan again. Otherwise I can’t think of any other examples. Rob Holding, bought from Bolton by Arsenal, is only now a regular starter, aged … 25. Kurt Zouma, bought as a hot prospect in 2014, finally started to be a mainstay of the Chelsea defence, now aged 26, before Frank Lampard was sacked.
Wed. Feb 3rd:
Why Has Liverpool’s Crossing Not Been Very Effective Recently?, by Andrew Beasley.
The nature of the lengthy data collection process for this little project means that this article is a contest between two competing confirmation biases. We’re going to be looking at the league goals which were assisted by open play crosses since the beginning of last season – which can only illustrate the strengths of deliveries from wide areas – and be comparing them with 151 (ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY ONE) crosses from Liverpool’s recent five game winless run, which will show the futility of flinging the ball into the box.
Thursday Feb 4th:
Scouting Report: Edwards’ Double Signing of Kabak & Davies on Deadline Day by Daniel Rhodes
January 2021: a nadir of multi-faceted problems, including The Arctic Goalless Streak™, a continuing injury crisis of epic proportions, and the return of the FSG-out mob, who are always loudest during transfer windows and are seemingly not that bothered about the football matches, the Champions League victory, ending a thirty year wait for a league title, the greatest performance over a 38 match period in the history of football or indeed the fact that FSG employed the people who made all of this happen. Nevermind all that: “where’s the money John?”
February 2021: Liverpool – and in particular Michael Edwards – pull off a double centre-back signing without (it seems) spending that much money. In fact, using the Messi Basic Salary Scale™, we spent the equivalent of one week’s wage on Ozan Kabak and Ben Davies. Hopefully in this scouting report you will get to see why John Henry handed over the money, and of course, what each player brings to the team.