The Midweek Maxi #23: Tears at Anfield, Analytical Genius & Gerrard’s Final Game

Our new Liverpool FC weekly compendium. News. Stats. Views. Debate. Links. Data. Insights. Delights.

To read about why we’ve replaced Free Friday with The Midweek Maxi, see the intro to the first edition.

So far the bumper weekly roundup is going down extremely well with paying subscribers:

This week:

• Excerpts and links to the different pieces we've published across the TTT Substack network, prior to the paywall kicking in;

• Then, some of the best comments from the site this past week;

• Next, Daniel Zambartas’ bumper LFC News, Media & Transfer Round-Up

Job done! (Oh, and it’s also a discussion thread for the issues raised.)

Note: the Maxi may exceed the email size limit on Substack, but the whole piece can be read online by paying subscribers.

TTT Network Roundup

Links and excerpts to articles on the various TTT sites, which are run by different people and require separate subscriptions to this, the TTT Main Hub.

The Main Hub

The old TTT tradition of My Day at the Match has fallen by the wayside, but over from Australia, Daniel Marshall gives it a dust-off.

By Dan Marshall (TTT graphic designer)

Liverpool vs West Ham
Sunday 24th September, 2023

My day at the match was my first day at the match for seventeen years.

If somebody had told on that evening all those years against Galatasaray, when Crouchy scored an overhead kick in a 3-2 win, that my next trip to Anfield would be in nearly two decades’ time, I would have scoffed.

But a combination of moving to Sydney 22 years ago, two marriages, two kids, two careers and a global pandemic have meant that my return was long overdue.

I’m originally from Southport and first started going to the game thanks to my Man United supporting father who had a huge soft spot for Kenny Dalglish. I first attended a game in Kenny’s debut managerial season – a 1-0 victory thanks to a late Ian Rush strike. For the next few years I was a frequent match-goer and was fortunate enough to witness Dalglish’s all conquering Johnny Barnes-infused team.

I moved to Liverpool in 1996 and got to the game when I could, but by 2001 I was calling Sydney home and attending matches obviously became a little bit difficult.

My Day Back At The Match (After Decades In Australia)

I got a cab from Lime Street up to the ground well in advance of the 2pm kick off and was dropped off just as the team bus arrived. The crowd was already huge and I was amazed to experience an Anfield that was not exactly the same as the last time I saw it. Not just the extended Main Stand, but everything else around it. It’s so much more modern and with far more families and overseas fans in attendance. But still with that game ‘edge’.

I was dressed all in black, with no red paraphernalia. Which is how I used to attend games all those years ago. Probably so I could go out in town afterwards. I took a longer stroll around the stands and it was then that I started to get this huge, overwhelming feeling. The tears were welling up and the penny finally dropped. I was back. Back after all those years. I managed to hold back the tears and made my way to my seat on the Kop. It was fantastic seat and I stood and watched the lads warm up like a young fan attending his first game. It wasn’t Jan Molby now, it was Mo Salah and I felt incredible.

Seeing all these amazing players warming up in the flesh was something I’ll never forget.

By the time ‘You’ll never Walk Alone’ was sung I was in absolute tatters. I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore and I let it all go. All those years, all those life experiences I’d had in between. As the song built to the crescendo I felt amazing. Happy and sad, joyous and melancholic. All at once. I felt privileged to be there. I felt alive.

This Red Planet

This brings us onto the future of the Reds’ use of advanced data and analytics. During the time when Graham was setting up the department - alongside Edwards - they employed a particle physicist who had been working at CERN, trying to find the Higgs Boson. That’s not the latest world-class Hungarian midfielder, whose dad made him wear tight boots as a kid, it’s - and I glazed over reading this so don’t feel bad - something a bit more important than that:

You and everything around you are made of particles. But when the universe began, no particles had mass; they all sped around at the speed of light. Stars, planets and life could only emerge because particles gained their mass from a fundamental field associated with the Higgs boson. The existence of this mass-giving field was confirmed in 2012, when the Higgs boson particle was discovered at CERN.

This was Will Spearman, and after the panic-stricken discussions that occurred after the departures of Edwards, Ward and Graham himself, our Chicago-born American took over the role vacated to become Liverpool’s Director of Research. But let’s rewind a bit, because how does a particle physicist from the US become interested in football? Well, he first took a job at Hudl, another data company that eventually went onto buy Wyscout. Not only that, but he started giving presentations at the Opta Pro Forum in London and the Sloan Sports Analytics conference in Boston.

Are the Reds on the Verge of Footballing AI Frontiers?

Just A Bit Of “Fun”

At Opta, his focus was on a theory called ‘pitch control’ - again, not the easiest to understand but worth a go.

He recalls at the time of the presentation:

“I was extremely nervous because I was in a room with people from Liverpool, PSG, Barcelona and whatnot — people who know more about football than I could ever possibly know, I was getting up there showing stuff that I’d largely just worked on for fun for a week or so.” His slide deck emphasised that he was a data scientist, “not a football expert!”

For more context, have a look at the presentation itself and tell me if you could come with this stuff… in a week “for fun”.

No, me neither. But one particular line stands out for me:

“How much does their presence improve their team’s chances of gaining possession of the ball above the average.”

The model’s aim was to look for “controlling players”, and remember this information was all in the public arena. Clubs hate this information being public. Who can gain an edge when everyone knows the answers? That soon changed, and Spearman was convinced to join the club in 2018. But not before he published another paper at the Sloan conference, entitled ‘Beyond Expected Goals’. This was before Match Of The Day or other media outlets had even started using xG, while Spearman was already moving on to the next ‘frontier’.

Dynasty

In this part, we look at the period leading up to the end of Brendan Rodgers’ time in the Anfield hotseat.

Originally written by TTT Subscriber Anthony Stanley, this major series was first serialised on The Tomkins Times and then published by TTT as a book, called A BANQUET WITHOUT WINE - A Quarter-Century of Liverpool FC in the Premier League Era.

Covering the period from the onset of the Premier League in 1992 to Klopp’s arrival in 2017, the book is available from https://www.amazon.co.uk/Banquet-Without-Wine-Quarter-Century-Liverpool/dp/1521850674. It remains a definitive matter of record of Liverpool FC during the period in question.

Part 20 - A Quarter of a Century of Liverpool FC in the Premier League Era, 1992-2017

Instead, Liverpool were dismantled 4-1 by the Gunners in a display that symbolised everything that had gone wrong since the heady days of the previous season: hesitant shooting, bad decision making, lack of thrust (or, indeed, apparent trust in each other and quite possibly their manager), heads going down at the first sign of a setback. It was a tame surrender and signalled another miserable run of games as Liverpool ended the league campaign with eight points from their final nine matches. Two of these games in particular gained an instant grim notoriety and still inspire shivers of horror from Kopites everywhere. The unqualified horror show on the final day of the season as Liverpool were absolutely annihilated by Stoke City who ran out 6-1 winners (Liverpool’s biggest league defeat since 1963) seemed to really break something within Brendan Rodgers. As he faced the media following this penny dreadful display, the Ulsterman looked haggard, haunted and stoically said that: “‘if the owners want me to go, I go.”

The Stoke chastening had been Gerrard’s last away game in the red shirt of Liverpool but his last home match didn’t exactly see a legend given the send-off his contribution deserved. Anfield was awash with sentiment and nostalgia and there was discernible pride in the air but, alas, this never transmitted to the team as they abjectly surrendered 3-1 to a poor Crystal Palace side (aggregate score against the Londoners in the 14/15 season? 6-2.). There was no passion on display, no tenacity, and the disconnect that was present between the Liverpool side and its support was apparent when the Kop – with gallows scouse humour – greeted the captain’s post-match assertion that the club would flourish in his absence with ironic laughter.

It had been hoped that Stevie’s last appearance for the club he had served with such distinction would be an FA Cup final on his birthday, a beguiling idea, dripping with romance as memories of forty yard screamers against West Ham resurfaced. Though the Reds had made progress in the competition it had been plodding rather than spectacular; replays against lower league opposition seemed to be a constant mid-week distraction during the spring. But Liverpool were given a glorious chance of making their captain’s final appearance a showpiece Wembley one when they faced Aston Villa in the semi-final. The tie took place before the league abominations mentioned above and it was, for many, the point that Rodgers lost their faith. Despite the Reds taking a thirtieth minute lead through Coutinho, the Villains equalised soon after when Christian Benteke punished some typically shoddy defending. Early in the second half, Fabian Delph put Liverpool behind and Rodgers then tried what felt like roughly sixteen different formations and tactics in a vain attempt to force an equaliser. It may have been different if Balotelli hadn’t been marginally ruled offside in the dying minutes, but the overriding memory of the cheerless resignation we all felt was Dejan Lovren’s forty yard punt in injury time which nearly hit the Wembley roof.

TTT Transfer Hub & Deep Dives

If Liverpool are to win the title this season, they would have to overcome the challenge of Arsenal and Manchester City. The last season’s top two are looking in better shape, albeit that City look slightly blunt when Kevin de Bruyne does not play. Another player they heavily rely on is Rodri. The way he composes their midfield and also creates chances is unparalleled. Declan Rice is starting to do that for Arsenal after joining in the summer.

So, to give Mac Allister’s performance some perspective, let’s compare his numbers to Rice and Rodri and see where he stands.

As suspected, Rice and Rodri have passing accuracy touching the 95%-mark. The former is way ahead in the defensive duel win rate while the latter has excellent ball recovery numbers. 

Comparatively, Mac Allister’s passing accuracy can go up a notch as stated above too. Possession lost number has to come down a bit and the winning rate of defensive duels should go up. If this happens, Liverpool will automatically become 5% better. 

All in all, that table is not bad for a player who is not used to playing the lone six role. But, if Liverpool are to get close, their midfield department has to start bringing the calm among the ‘chaos’ up front. 

Mac Allister’s Role as a Six: Analysis of the Argentine’s start at Anfield