How Good Are Liverpool?

Liverpool have been dropping points regularly recently. Should their Premier League title rivals (Arsenal) be expecting the Reds to fall away?

How good are Liverpool? It’s the question at the forefront of supporters’ minds at the moment, Reds or otherwise. Thomas Frank reckons they are the best team in the world but what does he know?

“They’re complete. Their work ethic, the way they track back, are good indicators. They’re so good all over the pitch. Such a threat going forward. These are really, really good. It’s the best team in the Premier League and the world. They’re huge favourites to win it [the title].” THOMAS FRANK

The Club Elo and Opta rankings agree with the Brentford boss. Recent results have given reason to wonder, though, with Liverpool only winning four of their last eight league games. Were it not for Darwin Núñez’s heroics at the death at the Gtech, the Reds would likely have dropped six points in their past three games.

It is not a time for panic. Even if the match with the Bees had ended goalless, Liverpool’s underlying process has been hugely encouraging in recent weeks. This post from Ted Knutson, combined with the race chart at the top of the page, proves the point.

It’s interesting that he said that Arne Slot’s men “rode their luck a bit and got the best results that maybe weren't always that deserved”. Ted built Statsbomb, he knows football data better than just about anybody. The Opta statistics, via FBRef, imply the Reds have deserved to win 18 and draw three of their 21 matches though. Or at least they do if you set a bar of an expected goals margin greater than 0.4 xG to merit a victory.

It’s roughly the value of one Opta-defined big chance, plus it ensures the expected points table has a realistic number of drawn matches. The xPts table for 2024/25 contains 62 draws when there have been 60 in reality.

Liverpool’s expected draws by this method were away to Manchester United, Arsenal and Newcastle. Only against the latter two did they lose the xG score, by just 0.1 and 0.2 respectively. They are nine xPts ahead of the next best side, which isn’t even Arsenal. It is beyond doubt that they are very good within the context of the 2024/25 Premier League.

But how about when assessed against seasons and champions past, how do they measure up then? While they’re not the best team English football has seen in the last eight seasons, they are heading in that direction.