Can Liverpool Win The League Title?
And who are the most serious rivals based on the transfer window and first four matches (part one)
The multiple transfer windows slammed shut recently, and the incredibly frustrating international break stopped the start to what had been an emotional opening four games to the season. For once, it was a welcome break to what could be another intense campaign under Klopp (2.0). It feels like a two year plan is nearly complete, so is it time to ask the serious question: can Liverpool win the league (again)?
My answer is a resounding no.
But please don’t stop reading now. This shit is nuanced. Or, in brutal honesty, it isn’t really is it? Man City will win the league, but they don’t count, literally, when it comes to their accounts. And it’s tough to actually count the amount of financial charges the Premier League listed, but in fact, it’s close to the amount of points we’ll need to beat them to the title (101). Just in case you forgot *cough* as the officials seem to have done, here’s some good reading on it The New York Times, The Guardian and the actual official statement for those legal buffs reading this (as if!).
Can Liverpool get 101 points? I don’t think any team should be able to get that amount of points in a competitive league. But we have come incredibly close to doing it before, yet that required the most superhuman run of points accumulation in the club’s history. In English football’s history in fact. Nevertheless, this current set of players is as close as we’ve been to the quality we had then, so with a bit of luck and maybe a potentially world class defender in the January window, we could certainly push Man City. But more on that later… now on to our ‘rivals’. And we’ll start with the biggest one, historically, for laughs.
Manchester United
For a change, and hear me out, on the face of it Manchester United have done some pretty shrewd business in this window. The signing of Hojlund - instead of an ageing Harry Kane - suggests some longer term planning. Though some of the nonsensical comparisons with Erling Haaland are frankly laughable. Though, in fairness to him, he is three years younger, but even then his Scandinavian counterpart doesn’t do any progressive carrying of the ball, or even receive virtually any progressive passes. Which seems to be Hojlund’s standout quality at this age, and something you could when he came on against Arsenal recently. More importantly though, he doesn’t contribute anywhere near the same volume of goals (who does), shots, xG or even creatively. Both seem to do absolutely nothing defensively.
Mason Mount is a bit meh, especially for that fee and those wages; yet, it does appear that they are signing players to suit the manager’s preferred style of football, which is the opposite of what they’ve done since Ferguson left. Ditto with Amrabat, who only arrives on loan, but again is player they needed, rather than Fred.
Now onto arguably the most important transfer, that of Onana, who replaces the now - hilariously - clubless David de Gea. The Cameroon international is quality, and again suit ten Hag’s preferred tactical set up when playing out from the back compared to the flat footed panic of the Spaniard. Is he world class? Not sure, though he has been nominated for the Lev Yashin Award, scandalously a trophy Alisson wasn’t nominated for despite arguably his best 12 months of his career.
You can see the similarity of style; you can also see who the world class keeper is versus the other one perhaps verging on it. The only stats Onana is ‘better’ on is save percentage (which fluctuates), and goals conceded (when Liverpool had more holes than a cheese grater at times last season in their defence). The key stat is post-shot xG/SoT (definition below).
Post-shot expected goals (PSxG) — Also known as expected goals on target. Differs from xG, which measures the likelihood of a goal before an attempt. PSxG rates the quality of the finishing touch and the difficulty of making a save by looking at the shot's placement in the goal.
They aren’t even close, the above metric is the best measure for long term performance and Alisson is one of the best in the world - as we know. Onana is yet to prove that, and could - hopefully - regress this season in terms of save percentage.
In terms of departures, it seems like they’ve got rid of a decent chunk of ‘deadwood’, though when you consider they’ve ‘sold’ £130m worth of players and received £50m in return you have to question the Sporting Director or club mascot in charge of the club’s transfer policy. Maybe that’s what they’ve done? Employed an expert for the incomings and allowed Fred The Red to deal with outgoings. Though that’s quite confusing as well, because he sold himself to Fenerbache for £8m.
On a more serious note, Mason Greenwood left but Anthony has been suspended pending further investigations for these allegations:
“Ms Cavallin, a DJ and social media influencer, accused Antony of offences that include attacking her with a glass and head-butting her, as well as threatening to kill her. She said he put her in a car, repeatedly assaulted her and threatened to throw her “out of the car at high speed … I was shaking with fear.”
She also alleges Antony punched her in the chest, causing damage to a silicone breast implant, prompting corrective surgery.
Antony denies all charges, releasing a statement in which he said the relationship was “tumultuous” but that he “never practised any physical aggression”.
The phrase “never practised any physical aggression” is very strange, though that could be translation issue.
Then there’s Jadon Sancho training on his own for apparently not training hard enough initially, then tweeting that his own manager is wrong and lying. That always goes down well.
Ten Hag left Sancho out of his squad for the loss at Arsenal earlier this month, saying the winger's training performances had been below standard.
Sancho, 23, rejected the Dutchman's reasoning and claimed he had been "a scapegoat for a long time".
United said in a statement Sancho would be on a "personal training programme away from the first team".
The statement added that the decision was made "pending resolution of a squad discipline issue."
Absolute shambles.
Perhaps most importantly though, is the lack of a sale. In fact, after recent reports suggested a sale was off with the Glazers holding out for £10bn, the news wiped a cool £554m off their share value. With seemingly no resolution. Furthermore, it was also confirmed that their current debt levels have passed the £1bn mark.
Absolute shambles.
How is the team performing so far this season?
Keeping it brief:
Fortunate to get three points against Wolves.
Unlucky not to come away with a point at least versus Spurs.
Two-nil down at home to Forest, but the stats suggest it was a fair result in the end.
Close against the Gunners but probably deserved to lose all things considered.
They’ve attempted 12 big chances, and conceded 7 for a BCD (big chance difference) of five, which is good.
They’ve only converted 7.7% of their shots, which is abysmal, but does hint they are running a bit cold.
Overall, they should not get within 15 points of Liverpool this season so aren’t a rival at all.
Positon prediction: fighting with Brighton for 6th or 7th.
The rest of this article is for subscribers only, and will take a deep dive look at Tottenham. With part two looking at nut-jobs Chelsea, Oil-Infested Newcastle and Arteta’s Arsenal (possibly the biggest threat to us finishing second). I genuinely can’t be bothered doing one on Man City, but I’ll do some digging and see if there’s any potential weaknesses in the underlying numbers we or others can exploit. And, of course, finally, the deep dive into the Reds’ chances using the same (and more including the pressing data I collect for Anfield Index) methods.