Liverpool’s injury troubles appeared to be receding, but as some players returned some others headed to the treatment room. Jurgen Klopp has been without at least seven members of his squad for every league match so far this season.
Such levels of absenteeism inevitably take a toll. It was good that Diogo Jota and Joel Matip returned to action in the 0-0 draw with Everton, but the Reds were without captain Jordan Henderson after he sustained a thigh injury three days earlier in the dramatic win over Newcastle.
Even though he has faced criticism throughout his Liverpool career, Henderson has received more than most of his teammates in the early weeks of 2022/23. His part in some of the goals the Reds have conceded – not least the decisive strike in their loss at Old Trafford – has been impossible to ignore. However, there is evidence that he is providing something to the attack which few of his colleagues can match.
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Any football team, good or bad, is built upon the relationships between their players. Jamie Carragher once revealed that Rafa Benitez would make pairs room together on away trips based on if they were going to be linking up on the pitch. “He put me in a room with Sami Hyypia because we both played centre-back… He would put the two strikers together, the full-backs and the wingers together and so on,” Carragher said.
The obvious way to measure partnerships in an attacking sense is to look at which players assist each other. Roberto Firmino’s 20 assists for Mohamed Salah lead the way in Jurgen Klopp’s time at Liverpool, with the Egyptian setting up 11 goals for the Reds’ number nine in return.
We can also look at chances created, for a bigger sample. Since the summer of 2017, Sadio Mane’s 86 for Salah makes them the top combination in the Premier League as far as Liverpool are concerned. With the increasing advancements in football analytics, it’s possible to dig deeper still.
David Sumpter, author of the book Soccermatics (among others) recently posted a thread of Liverpool data for 2022/23. One chart he shared related to expected threat (xT). This is essentially the same concept as expected goals but applied to every action which occurs on the pitch and not just shots.
It’s possible to put a value on every pass to see how it increased or decreased the likelihood of a goal being scored. We can then look at which duos contribute most in this manner.
For Liverpool, it’s little surprise to see Trent Alexander-Arnold’s passes to Salah have added the most value. The former has made more appearances with the Egyptian than he has with any other player (208, per Transfermarkt ), which has allowed their relationship on the right hand side to blossom and flourish.
The pairing on the opposite flank has spent far less time together, but the combination of Andy Robertson and Luis Diaz has still been the Reds’ second most threatening so far this season. This is encouraging for the future as their influence should grow once they get even better accustomed with each other’s game.
Neither of these pairings is hardly surprising, as it is well established that Liverpool rely on their full-backs in the final third. Far less obvious is the next most productive pairing: Henderson and Diaz. They have only played 304 minutes together too, when the leading duos have had 483 and 397 minutes respectively.
The skipper assisted the Colombian’s first Liverpool goal, in front of the Kop in a 3-1 victory over Norwich City. That aside their relationship hasn’t been too apparent to the eye but Henderson’s stats prove that a strong connection exists between them.
Liverpool’s longest serving player has completed a total of 25 progressive passes in the league this season, with Diaz the recipient for nine of them (at least four more than anyone else). Similarly, the former Porto man has been on the end of five of the captain’s 11 successful passes into opposition penalty boxes.
‘Lucho’ may not assist him defensively but he could be the unlikely hero who helps kickstarts Henderson’s 2022/23 going forward. Their combination could take a few opposition defences by surprise too.
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