Richard Jolly uncovers some incredible Liverpool statistics that show just how "freakishly good" the Reds have been in their march towards the title.
The title race is not quite over. The leaders are closing in on a historic feat, but their north-west rivals can still overhaul them. Manchester City, chasing a third successive crown, are top on 63.21 points but Liverpool have 59.81. Jurgen Klopp could yet make them champions for the first time since 1990.
It is not merely the decimal points that shows this is not the table that matters most. Liverpool’s 25-point lead is one of the campaign’s more famous facts. Go by expected points, however, and they trail City and are only 4.26 ahead of Chelsea. Instead of the potentially record-breaking season they are compiling, dropping only five points in accumulating 82 – and, with nine games to go, perhaps eventually 109 - they would be nearly men, runners up for the second successive season.
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So are Liverpool brilliant or lucky? Are they a statistical outlier or a team beating the numbers? The answer to the second is both: their run of 106 points from a possible 108, before February’s defeat to Watford, was so freakishly good that realistically it was impossible to maintain. But the consistency they had demonstrated was magnificent.
The numbers point to a team who are often better than their opponents but not as dominant as the table suggests. In every marker, they are overachieving: at home they have a maximum 45 points, but their expected points is 33.82, lower than Chelsea’s (in reality, Frank Lampard’s side only have 24 points at Stamford Bridge); away, their expected points is exactly 26, some 6.90 below City’s, and their actual tally is 37, nine better than Pep Guardiola’s haul.
At both ends of the pitch, they are outperforming the figures: they have 66 goals from an xG of 61.03 and have conceded 21; their expected goals against is 28.69, 1.32 higher than City’s whereas, in real life, the defending champions have conceded 10 more.
A feature of winners is that they do better than the statistics suggest they should: City got 100 and 98 points in the previous two seasons from expected points totals of 91.09 and 90.64 respectively; yet not normally to this extent. At their current rate of progress, Liverpool’s eventual expected points tally for the whole campaign will be 79.97. Actually, they already have 82.
A closer comparison comes from Antonio Conte’s Chelsea, champions with 93 points from an expected points of 75.74. That was far below City’s and suggests three things: the statistical models tend to be favour – and perhaps overrate – attack-minded possession teams and underrate sides who, once they have a lead, sometimes protect it and rarely shoot, that Conte’s Chelsea, whose 85 goals came from an xG of just 61.80, were astonishingly clinical and that City, when they don’t win, can be inefficient.
This season’s title race is a clash of the wasteful and ruthless. City top the charts for shots (541), shots on target (192), goals (68), possession (61.6 percent), passing accuracy (88.9 percent) and hitting the woodwork (19 times). When they beat teams, they can hammer them in a way Liverpool rarely do. Jurgen Klopp’s side, however, have become masters at triumphing in tight games. They have 14 victories by one-goal margins. City have just five.
City can lose games they ‘won’ on expected goals: 2-0 to Tottenham with an xG of 3.25 against 0.42, 2-0 to Wolves (1.62 versus 1.19), 3-2 to Norwich (2.34 to 1.74). They drew 2-2 with Newcastle, despite xG scores of 2.44 and 0.21, and Crystal Palace, where 2.47 played 0.59.
In contrast, Liverpool have won three games with a lower xG: away at Wolves and Chelsea and home to City and have seven more victories when their xG was at most 0.65 higher, suggesting they could easily have been draws, and the expected points table reflects expected goals. That ability to prosper when it is close could be put down to holding their nerve or brinkmanship: certainly it has involved late winners against Leicester, Aston Villa, Palace, Wolves, Norwich and West Ham.
But it also comes down to individuals. Seven of Liverpool’s eight top scorers – Roberto Firmino is the glaring exception – have more goals than their xG suggests they should. Only four of City’s whole squad do: Sergio Aguero, Kevin de Bruyne, Riyad Mahrez and Rodri.
At the other end, Liverpool benefit from the Alisson effect. City have an occasional tendency to concede from the only shots on target, meaning they can drop points in games that, statistically, they dominate. In contrast, Liverpool had a spell where the calibre of chances opponents created was not reflected in the scoreline, which reflects upon some wretched misses, but also their goalkeeper’s ability to make vital saves. They had a run of 11 games when they conceded once, to Wolves’ Raul Jimenez, and yet had an xGA of 8.64.
Amid talk of pressing and passing revolutions and ideas that philosophies bring success, it sounds distinctly old-fashioned to say titles are won in the two penalty boxes but Liverpool’s triumph over expected goals and expected points indicates that this is the case. And yet the very fact that since the statistics required to produce expected points were first compiled, no one has ever got 22.19 more Premier League points than the figures suggest they should shows it might be unsustainable. It would not be a case of their luck running out as much as the reality that no one carries on winning close games without losing or drawing them forever.
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