Liverpool Have An Attacking Problem at Anfield to Resolve

Liverpool lead the Premier League for Opta-defined big chances this season. Most teams have more at home than away but not the Reds. It isn't even close.

Trying to predict outcomes in football is tough. You can consider recent form, the head-to-head record between the teams and the birthplace within Manchester of the referee, all sorts. You’ll still frequently fail to hit the mark.

Football has too many variables smashing into each other to be predictable most of the time. It’s a big part of why we love it.

Occasionally you’ll stumble across a correct call by chance, much like a stopped clock (see below). Making forecasts using data tends to be more accurate than plucking a time out of the sky, roughly 19 minutes before Raphinha scored against Inter with 86:59 on the clock in the Champions League semi-final second leg.

There is a data page on the website for this newsletter, upon which you can find various charts and tables which attempt to forecast Premier League matches.

It includes a more in-depth prediction for Liverpool’s next game, the idea being that it shows the match statistics we might expect to see if the relative data profiles for the two teams follow their season-wide averages.

Something strange occurred when plotting the forthcoming Anfield clash with Arsenal: Liverpool are predicted to have fewer Opta-defined big chances than their opponents. Every time I have pulled up this data ahead of a game, the Reds have led all four categories, but they have dropped a ball here. A big one, if Opta are to be believed.

The first port of call was to check for a data error. Liverpool’s expected goal difference per game has been 0.54 ahead of Arsenal, the second best team in the division, so they must have a better record for big (a.k.a. clear-cut) chances, right? In total, they do:

The game stats predictions are calculated by matching each teams strength on a metric relative to the rest of the Premier League at home or away depending on where they are playing the fixture. This is where a surprising, mildly troubling revelation came to light: Liverpool have an issue with big chances at Anfield.