Liverpool are winning games while creating almost no clear chances
Andoni Iraola's side sit fourth in the Premier League, but a look at their underlying numbers shows a counter-attacking team being stifled and bailed out by elite finishing, Planet Football's data reveals.
Liverpool are fourth in the Premier League under Andoni Iraola, a point behind Brighton and six adrift of leaders Manchester City and Arsenal. Among managers new to their clubs this summer, only Manchester City's Enzo Maresca sits higher in the table, according to Planet Football.
Buried in that respectable position is a number that does not fit the story. Only one team in the division, bottom-half Coventry, has created fewer big chances than Liverpool this season, Planet Football reports. Arsenal have generated roughly double Liverpool's total, and Manchester City close to treble it.
What makes this harder to square is that Liverpool are not short of goals. They rank as the ninth-highest scorers in the league, meaning a side built around one of the most expensive squads in Europe is finding the net regularly while barely manufacturing clear-cut openings.
Why the counter-attack keeps running into a wall
Iraola's football is founded on speed in transition. Opta's direct speed metric, which tracks how quickly the ball moves towards the opponent's goal during an attacking sequence, has Liverpool fourth in the league in that category, behind only Hull, Brentford and Coventry, Planet Football notes.
The problem is what waits for them when they get there. Liverpool have faced the highest proportion of low blocks of any Premier League team this season, with 28% of their attacks running into a deep, compact defence, compared with facing a high line just 15% of the time, per the figures cited by Planet Football.
At Bournemouth, Iraola rarely had to solve that puzzle with such regularity. At Liverpool, the counter-attack he built his reputation on keeps finding opponents already organised and waiting, which is why only one of Liverpool's ten fast breaks this season has produced a goal.
It echoes a problem Jurgen Klopp faced during his own spell at Anfield, when low blocks were the standard defensive response to his team's transition game. The solution then rested on creative players capable of unpicking a settled defence rather than simply running at a broken one.
Wirtz builds play but rarely delivers the killer pass
Florian Wirtz is effectively Liverpool's only out-and-out playmaker, and his form carries outsized scrutiny given his transfer fee and a difficult debut season, Planet Football observes. His performance against Brentford was held up as a response to criticism from pundits including Jamie Carragher after he created nine chances.
None of those nine chances were classified as big chances. Wirtz's key passes in that game combined for an expected assists value of 0.53, a figure that Planet Football frames as representative of his broader output: passes that invite a shot rather than passes that gift a goal.
The structure around him has also changed from the Klopp era. Roberto Firmino used to drop deep to drag defenders out and open space for Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah to cut in from the flanks as inside forwards. Alexander Isak instead holds a higher, more orthodox number nine position, which pushes Bradley Barcola and Victor Munoz wider rather than inward.
Liverpool's finishing is masking a shortfall in quality chances
Understat's expected goals data puts Liverpool's total at 11.83 xG this season, the eighth-lowest in the league, Planet Football reports. Yet they sit fourth in the table, a gap the analysis attributes not to tactics but to the individual quality of their forwards in front of goal.
Isak is outperforming his expected goals tally by 1.3, while Cody Gakpo, the player closest in style to Mane and Salah from the Klopp years, is also scoring above his underlying numbers, as is Munoz. Beyond the opening-day win over Newcastle, Liverpool have not produced an xG total above 1.8 in any match this season, and they were outscored on expected goals by Brighton before winning 2-0.
The conventional read would call that unsustainable. Planet Football argues the opposite may hold, at least for now: a squad valued above €1 billion can simply trust its forwards to keep converting above the expected rate, and a counter-attacking approach may cause fewer problems against bigger clubs who feel compelled to play on the front foot rather than retreat into a low block.
Nearly every opponent Liverpool have faced this season, with the exception of Manchester City, had reason to expect defeat and set up accordingly. Liverpool were in control of that City match until Ryan Gravenberch's red card changed its course. The question of how Iraola's team copes against sides unwilling to sit deep is about to be tested properly, first in the EFL Cup on Wednesday and then at Anfield next Sunday, when Arsenal visit.