The Midweek Maxi #29: Matip’s Masterclass, Man City’s Flaws & Bonus Players
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
Doesn’t get much more jam-packed than the Reds’ return from the international brea to face Man City, followed by a Europa League tie last night; as well as the most compact set of upcoming fixtures of the season. The same applies on TTT, with plenty to choose from!
…
Guardian article picked out the following quote from Brentford manager Thomas Frank:
“Mo Salah gets praised a lot but I don’t know if he gets enough praise,” the Brentford manager said. “I think now, off the top of my head, he is the best player in the Premier League potentially. In terms of goals and assists, what a level. He must be one of the top offensive players in the world. Not top 10, but top three.”
I also saw a generally good article in the Athletic that talked about teammates assisting Salah, and that Harvey Elliott and Luis Díaz had yet to do so, despite showing their various passes to his shots. But to me, that's just the randomness of finishing, and the often shaky nature of assists.
There should be proper assists, which create the chance, and playing a ball to someone in a neutral manner, from which a goal is only then created. (So, Kostas Tsimikas' first assist for Salah, the header, in the last game is a creative assist; the pass to Diogo Jota, was a non-creative assist.)
The only times Salah has disappointed me in performances this season has been in a few games as the old Salah, pushed up high against a full-back, and running into him a lot.
Yes, he can still bamboozle, and in those games he still scored goals, albeit the two he got against Everton were first from the spot, and then on the end of a breakaway goal (which he can still take part in, clearly).
But Liverpool looked formulaic in those games, and Salah predictable, resorting to cutting inside almost every time, with no Trent Alexander-Arnold overlapping, and Szoboszlai staying a bit deeper.
Overall however, the new Salah is a deep-lying-line-hugging ball-player, who, to my eyes, does most damage in the second phase, arriving like a Frank Lampard as a finisher of scraps, rebounds and pull-backs. Salah sets up the play for Szoboszlai (or another midfielder who goes wide and ahead of the ball), and Szoboszlai crosses to the fast strikers or can hold it up for Salah.
Then, there’s darting infield to receive a pass, where no defender needs to be beaten, and often it’s that open-play penalty situation.
Salah has the coolness in good positions that Núñez still intermittently lacks. Salah wastes the old type of not-even-half-chances that his precision turned into half-chances (and goals), but he's now almost a penalty-taker in open play.
His finishes are no longer in a racing one-on-ones from the halfway line, but as the ball breaks to him in the chaos, or he finds stillness in the chaos.
With Liverpool now having gone to City, Spurs, Newcastle, Chelsea and Brighton, and no major clubs yet having to come to what is increasingly ‘Fortress Anfield’ (but European competition sides Aston Villa and West Ham have, as well as the hassle of a Mersey derby), this was never going to be a title-decider.
City, with all their players who were too injured for international duty straight back in the XI, were playing games in many senses.
But against all that, the Reds came away with a well-deserved draw.
Indeed, it feels like City are stagnating (a fraction) and Liverpool improving rapidly, based on previous encounters. Obviously City were lethal at home, but with 23 wins on the bounce throughout 2023, they were bounced out of two points here by Trent Alexander-Arnold. Here’s to 2024.
Again, for Liverpool to be just a point behind City after going to their place, as well as going to Chelsea, Spurs, Newcastle and Brighton, and having had four players harshly sent off this season (and the biggest game-changing VAR mistake in history as well as two soft reds in the same game), whilst rebuilding the side, is nothing short of sensational.
The next step is consistency, and handling the pressure of the chase.
That said, this what pretty much all bar the midfielders and a couple of strikers are used to; albeit some new signings came from high-pressure clubs – Ryan Gravenberch doesn't need to be told about how things work at title-winners after playing for Ajax at 16 and joining from Bayern Munich. Dominik Szoboszlai played for a Champions League club in Germany and captains his country. And Alexis Mac Allister made World Cup-winning Argentina tick.
So, as I will focus on for the game below, there are a lot of positives, in what was a hard-earned and merited draw, against the team with the asterisks in waiting.
While you can win the league in different ways, City did so last season by being impressive in games against the Big Six and Newcastle (who finished in the top four).
They averaged 2.08 points per game in those matches, winning eight of 12.
They also played Chelsea, Arsenal, Man United, Chelsea again, and Liverpool in the cups, and won all of them.
That would make it 13 wins from 17 games, or if league games, 2.35 points per game. Which interestingly, equals 89 points for a season.
This season? Five equivalent league games, and so far they’ve beaten Newcastle (1-0) and Man United (3-0 away). But they’ve lost at Arsenal, could only draw away at a Chelsea side that were struggling (and who scored four goals against City, despite not being able to score goals against 11-man teams), and then failed to beat Liverpool at home.
While a smaller sample size, it means just 1.6ppg.
Plus they’ve already lost to Wolves, when last season they lost one league game to a smaller club (in that case Brentford) all season.
Add the cups this season, and City have lost to Newcastle. As ever, City fielded a fairly strong team, and Newcastle did so to, but like City, also rested several key players.
Indeed, since Erling Haaland has arrived, Man City have become an 88-point team, per 38 games, when averaging last season’s ppg with this.
The reason I mention Haaland is that City's pressing – passes per defensive action (PPDA) – has fallen off a cliff in 2023/24, having dipped in 2022/23. (Albeit as Beez noted, it can be affected by teams playing more direct against you.)
The Zen Den
Both Jarell Quansah and Ben Doak have had important minutes for their development, albeit mostly in the Europa League. I’m a huge fan of both, albeit each is a long way from where they could be in one year, two years and three years.
But four potentially very handy players have yet to play at all this season:
Stefan Bajcetic
Thiago Alcantara
Conor Bradley
Kaide Gordon
It's easy to forget Thiago, but this is a great player to bring on in games to help manage the situation; if he gets fully fit again. He would be a huge bonus.
Stefan Bajcetic will be six months older and stronger when he returns; he's back in full training. Just as Harvey Elliott has gone up a level physically this season after turning 20, you can often see great change just over a summer, let alone six months or more.
The same applies to both Conor Bradley, 20, and Kaide Gordon, 19. Both are training fully with the first team squad again.
Bradley had a stress fracture of the back (much like me right now, albeit mine includes age-related deterioration of the vertebrae and discs and spinal canal, that he should not experience!), and Gordon has missed about two years of football.
As the surgeon who performed Darwin Núñez's ACL operation (when the striker was 17) noted, almost no players at that age come back after a year out. Contracts fizzle, and they lose too much development time, even if the operation is a success.
Two years out for Gordon matches Rhian Brewster, who is still a Premier League player, which is no mean feat; but who hasn’t yet amounted to what he could have been, due to injuries and then impatience for game-time.
But Gordon already had first-team experience, and was so good at 15 (playing for Derby) and 16 (for Liverpool) that, allied to all his subsequent physical growth in his late teens, means the Reds still have a top prospect; and one who has been around the squad for three years now.
TTT Transfer Hub & Deep Dives
Most people envisaged this season to be the one where we see Ibrahima Konaté taking the mantle of the first-choice right-sided centre-back. But, the Frenchman has struggled to stay fit, opening the door for the likes of Matip, Joe Gomez or even Jarell Quansah to stake their claim in the side.
The former, whose contract at Anfield expires at the end of this season, is not expected to sign an extension unless there is a sudden turnaround. The 32-year-old has played well and is on course to leave the club on a high next summer.
In this article, we focus on the former Schalke defender’s performance so far this campaign and also look at the progress chart showing where he has bettered his game this time around.
J. Matip - 2023/24 Numbers
Matip is not only having one of his better seasons individually, but he has been one of the best defenders in the league since August. We just hope that long may it continue with no injury or form dip hindrance.
In this section, we have a few data visuals consisting of Premier League defenders of this season in various metrics to gauge where the 32-year-old is at this point in time.
NB - When you filter in “defenders” from the FBRef data, they do not have another filter for centre-backs and fullbacks separately. So, the defender visuals will consist of both centre-backs and fullbacks.
Keeping that in mind and looking at the visual above, Matip has been one of the best defenders at passing this season so far. Referring to the history and the type of player the Cameroonian is, this isn’t much of a surprise. He has always exhibited great control on the ball with excellent accuracy and ball progression numbers.
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