Sometimes opposition goalkeepers make several great saves in a match but you don’t care because your team won anyway. Far more memorable are the occasions when your heroes are thwarted time and again, leading to points slipping away.
Liverpool are obviously no strangers to this. Back in 2017, Vito Mannone made 13 saves for Sunderland in a 2-2 draw at the Stadium of Light, and four years earlier Alex McCarthy kept out 11 goal-bound shots as the Reds drew 0-0 with Reading.
These days we have far more advanced analysis techniques than merely counting the number of efforts on target. Post-shot expected goal models account for other factors, such as the power and placement of the shot, to quantify a goalkeeper’s performance. By this measure, Jordan Pickford recorded one of the best figures by any stopper against Liverpool in the last five years when the recent Merseyside derby ended goalless.
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The England international’s heroics at Goodison Park have contributed to Everton having the widest margin between post-shot xG and goals conceded so far this season ( per FBRef ). Only six other Premier League teams aside from Liverpool are in credit on this front, and it’s interesting to see the Reds have already faced three of them.
Further analysis from Goalkeeper.com helps to explain why. In a recent article, they looked at the eight nominees for the top flight’s Save of the Month award for August and concluded that most of them did not merit their inclusion. They also shared their 16 best stops from the first month of the season and something stood out a mile.
Three of the top 12 were made by goalkeepers who were facing Liverpool. West Ham were on the wrong end of two and no other club had more than one (though Leeds drew the 14 th and 15 th best saves). To rub salt into the Reds’ wounds, two made against them occurred in matches they did not win.
However, the most impressive stop from their games, and the second best in the Premier League last month, was by Mark Travers for Bournemouth in a match they lost 9-0. Talk about academic, and especially as the rebound from the save in question was converted by Roberto Firmino anyway.
Far, far worse for the Reds was David de Gea keeping out Luis Diaz’ point-blank effort at Old Trafford, with what was deemed the league's sixth best save in August. Although Liverpool were two down at the point it occurred, it was only two minutes after Marcus Rashford’s goal. With 35 minutes to score an equaliser rather than the nine they eventually had, perhaps Jurgen Klopp’s side might have found one.
It was something of a similar story at Craven Cottage on the opening weekend. In the 61 st minute of Liverpool’s match with Fulham, Marek Rodak kept out a shot from Darwin Nunez, as the Reds trailed 1-0. The Uruguayan scored three minutes later in any case, but it was another save better than any which 11 other teams in the division faced in the whole of last month.
So, have Liverpool been particularly unlucky so far this season or must they bear some of the responsibility themselves? It’s likely a little of both, but there’s certainly a case for the latter. With the 2022/23 campaign only a small sample at this point, a 9-0 win inevitably skews the figures so let’s ignore that for now.
Without the Bournemouth match, the Reds have only put 28 per cent of their Premier League shots on target, against a division-wide average of 35 per cent. Add in the two European games and Liverpool have generated 12.2 expected goals this season but only 11.3 in the post-shot model.
In other words, their finishing has cost them 7.4 per cent of their xG. It denied them 1.8 per cent in the two main competitions last season, and 5.3 the year before that. If a team isn’t testing goalkeepers often enough then they run the risk of them making a world class save when they do. This issue of one of many which may have already cost the Reds points this season.
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