Liverpool had very few positives to take from their 4-1 defeat to Manchester City. Their previous record as the only top flight side who had won every match in which they scored first this season was swept away in humiliating fashion.
If nothing else, the game did at least see Mohamed Salah secure another couple of records to add to his ever-increasing collection. He is now the Reds’ top scorer on the road in the Premier League, and he equalled Robbie Fowler’s competition record for left-footed goals.
The move which led to Liverpool going 1-0 up was interesting in two ways. Firstly, it came at the end of a sequence of 18 passes, one of the Reds’ longest possession chains in the match. However, much of it occurred in their defensive third. It was clear City were largely happy to retain a mid-block position and allow the visitors to retain the ball without pressing them too severely.
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Far more important than the string of safe passes was the one which delivered the ball swiftly into the final third. The pass from Trent Alexander-Arnold to Diogo Jota for the pre-assist was the third longest completed by a Liverpool outfield player on Saturday afternoon and the sixth most valuable in expected threat terms.
If Jurgen Klopp’s side are best known in an attacking sense for using their counter-press as a playmaker, then their ability to move up field at lightening speed to catch opponents unguarded isn’t far behind.
Yet while both of their league goals against the defending champions in 2022/23 saw them exploit long passes through the heart of the pitch, such play hasn’t been as frequent as it was last season.
The chart in the above tweet compares Premier League teams between this season and last for two metrics: passes-per-sequence and direct speed (which is “a measure of how quickly a team progresses the ball up field”, in metres per second). Liverpool’s possession sequences have been shorter in 2022/23, and although it isn’t shown in the graph, they have gone from averaging 18 chains of at least 10 passes per match last term to 15.3 in this campaign.
As such, the sequence they strung together in the build up to their goal at the Etihad (as much as it was partially allowed by City) was unusual. The big question here is how much of their shift has been deliberate?
Liverpool are not dominating matches to the same extent as they were, with their possession average 4.7 per cent lower than it was in 2021/22. This is unusual as they have spent a larger proportion of their playing time losing than in any season since 1998/99 (per Football Lineups), so you would expect them to have more of the ball as they try to get back into games when behind.
Equally, if they have chosen to spend less time on the ball to feed their new agent of chaos, Darwin Nunez, more quickly then it would make sense their possession sequences are shorter. The problem there is that the data shows the Reds are being less direct too. It would be interesting to see these numbers for when the Uruguayan has or hasn’t started (and he has been in the XI for less than two-thirds of the games) but the numbers don’t add up from a tactical standpoint.
Salah’s goal against City last weekend was a wonderful move, but with both a long possession build-up and a direct pass to slice through the opposition, it was something of an aberration for Liverpool in 2022/23. Legendary manager Bob Paisley famously said, “it’s not about the long ball or the short ball, it's about the right ball.” Klopp needs to decide which is right for his team because the data and outcomes look off at present.
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