In the midst of a disappointing season of ups and downs and facing a new front three with poor turnover, it is bound to be very counter-intuitive to actually use the word stable to describe the team's attacking depth, but allow the author to gradually deconstruct the important and relevant data, and I believe that readers and fans should be able to understand this counter-intuitive conclusion.
First, this season
England Premier Soccer League
totaled 75 goals (1.97 avg.), compared to the last five seasons:
This season's firepower output is only marginally better than that of two years ago when we had a center back shortage, which may seem worrying, but if you look at the expected numbers, which are a better measure of the team's strengths and depth, then the offensive depth we've shown is actually not as worrying as it seems.
As shown by the two main data platforms (understat & fbref).
Liverpool (England)
80.77 goals in xG (Expected Goals) performance this season respectively (
England Premier Soccer League
Second) & 72.6 goals (
England Premier Soccer League
(iii):
Note 1: Calculation of xG data may vary slightly between platforms.
Note 2: The first of both platforms is undoubtedly the
Manchester City football club
However, 3rd and 2nd both happen to be Brighton (who we swapped places with) and then we've only just bought the team's starting midfielder.
And this season's xG is actually higher than that year's 19/20 title-winning season (that year's numbers were UNDERSTAT: 75.19, FBREF: 68.9). Also, Big Chances Created, which totaled 125 this season, is second only to
Manchester City football club
of 132 (from sofascore), and that number is only slightly behind the 132 from last season's all-time level of firepower since the Klopp era:
And this is still in the season we enter the Klopp era, the first real sense of the offensive line blood change under the pain of the period of data surrendered, a distance from the completion of the grind is obviously still a distance + Nunez's potential to even one-third of the potential has not yet been unleashed offensive line, especially Nunez's Big Chances Missed this season is also quite unexpected:
Of course, a solid foundation is one thing, but the ability to convert it into tangible results is also a part of strength. The lack of ability to grasp opportunities has always been one of our
Liverpool (England)
The general consensus among fans is that Big Chances Missed this season (78 times.
Manchester City football club
(more chances than us but less wasted than us) is even higher in the
England Premier Soccer League
First:
However, it's worth noting that since the beginning of Klopp's full season, the team's offense has been overperforming by at least five goals (scoring more than expected), as long as they haven't suffered a serious wave of injuries (as they have this season and two years ago):
*The above data are taken from the fbref platform.
It's the breakdown of the defense that is clearly the more worrisome part of the equation than the offensive side of the ball, and is the part of the equation that I'll be watching with more focus next season. And in fact what has really allowed us to battle the moneyed hegemony to a stalemate over the past few seasons, both in championship seasons and high scoring runner-up seasons, has actually been excellent defensive protection, and it's been more than
Manchester City football club
The better kind. Yet a defense that was already high risk this season surrendered its worst performance since the Klopp era.
this season
England Premier Soccer League
We've actually conceded a total of 47 goals in 38 rounds (1.24 goals per game), which is not only higher than the 42 goals we conceded in that ridiculous season two years ago, but also an extremely disappointing report card when you look at the rest of the seasons in Klopp's era (26 goals, 33 goals, 22 goals, 38 goals). And this is also true when looking at the performance of Expected Goals Against (xGA) numbers. This season's xGA of 50.9 goals is also a rather surprising regression from previous seasons:
* Data taken from the fbref platform
The first to bear the brunt, naturally, is the core of the two defense system: VVD & Fabinho. first from the so-called pin VVD chat, from the author think more sense of the confrontation data, the overall confrontation data (Total Duels) performance for the win rate of 70% + 4.1 wins per game, it seems to be pretty good, but if you compare to the past few seasons:
