Finally got on your substack brother. Dig it man, and your podcast too. Thanks for the insight. I'll be consuming the wisdom on the regular. Up the Reds!
I tend to agree with the thrust of this piece, that good process produces good results in the long run. It's helpful when looking at a short-term batch of results as if we're playing poorly but winning you know not to get too ahead of yourself expectation-wise, and if we're playing well but struggling to convert that into points, you know that the wins will soon be racking up. It allows you to behave less excitably at each result, lurching from "Oh my God" (bad) to "Oh my God" (good) and back again.
However...
Having to take nearly 40 shots to score a goal isn't 'good process', it's struggling to score.
Yes, the build-up process is getting us into scoring positions but it's not creating good quality chances to score.
For instance, someone posted up a well-intentioned stat that Mo Salah had created seven chances, which was the most since dinosaurs roamed the Earth or whatever, but those seven shooting chances created only had an xG of 0.43 which means that Mo would have had to create 16 of those chances for us to get a goal, on average. So, poor quality chances then, in fact barely worthy of being called 'chances' at all. If Mo had created 16 shooting opportunities and they were all spurned/blocked/whatevered, Liverpool supporters would have been tearing their own heads off never mind tearing their hair out.
And the question that interests me is, why did we struggle to score with that many shots?
A squeaky bum time answer is that we could be seeing the return of the desperation seen in the second half of last season, as Núñez and Diaz swipe at the ball as soon as they near goal. I don't think we are, yet, but Darwin is very very prone to it, and Luisito, God love him, can defo drift into that same state as the thought of winning the big one begins to loom large. Nothing wrong with trying your absolute utmost for the club, but desperation is not helpful.
The most obvious answer, tactically, is that a packed defence is hard to break down. Everyone knows this. It's why we seem to be seeing more managers employ it against us, and the more successful we are the more likely we are to have to face it, I'd venture. In a way this could be a hugely positive sign that opposition managers start to view us like the Manchester City machine and there's really no hope for them but to sit deep and hope to jam into a 0-0 draw.
But I think it's much more problematic than that for us.
We have no width down the right. Haven't had for a long time since Pep Lijnders came up with the "invertoshambles" role for Trent. Bang goes the width down the right. I can't be arsed with heatmap charts, frankly I think they're next to useless. The eye test is enough to see we lack width down the right and have done for about two years now. Trent sits deeper under Slot, but still spends periods of the game wandering around the middle of the pitch, to no great effect, in fact I wish Slot would just put a stop to it as I thought he would when he came into the club.
We seem to build up way way more up the left hand side than the right, which is fine, there may be reasons for it, like Gakpo is a lot stronger on the ball, to hold play up, than Salah is. We almost seem to use Gakpo as a centre forward out wide in that respect. Clever? Probably?
But once we're up the pitch, having all our players loaded into the left-hand two-thirds of the pitch is not helpful at all. Against a packed defence you want to stretch the oppo defence right across the full width of the pitch. That creates space, and space creates better chances.
In other words, we're causing our own problems here, and we could help solve them. Easily.
If you go back to the late 80s side and into the early 90s, we stretched the opposition the full width of the pitch. Rob Jones wasn't much of a 'footballer', I don't think he ever scored for us, but he was dynamic, he ran all day, up and back, and helped crack open packed defences. Jason McAteer. I swear he clocked up 100 miles in sprints in just one game at Old Trafford.
Trent can't replicate that. If he crosses the halfway line these days he needs a taxi to get back in his own half before the final whistle goes. But it's up to Slot to produce a solution. Get Dom wider then. He actually looked good playing right wing for Leipzig in his last season there. It's not like he's a natural in midfield: his passing isn't great, and he's really not a central creator.
Probably seems curmudgeonly to mention all this when we're top of the table, and squeaked what could end up being a vital two point gain on Arsenal, but squeaked is the operative word. We could and should have been 1-0 down and things could have turned out very differently.
Trent loses the ball in midfield in the first ten minutes or so, turns round like a supertanker, barely raises a jog back towards goal, reluctantly, with all the enthusiasm of a teenage kid being told to come back to the table to finish off his iceberg lettuce, and then everyone sees it unfolding except Trent, the Brentford player making a move to the far post to get on the end of a cross from the right-hand side, still Trent can't be arsed accelerating, the cross comes in, the player is about to apply the easiest of tap-ins and... somehow we get away with it.
Trent must have got a John Heitinga rocket at half-time cos he was much better second half, in fact he did some very good work defensively, even sprinting back towards his own goal, but had that Brentford chance gone in we'd have been facing another Forest uphill slog with possibly only a point to show for it at best. Fine margins. It'd be nice if we addressed them.
Great comment. I too see some similarities with the last month and the latest few months of last season. I'm putting a lot of store on our xg as a way of calming myself but, like your say, most of that seems to be made by non big chances.
To put what you are saying into numbers, let’s look into all the shots excluding the two goals from Darwin. Out of the remaining 35 shots, 26 had an xG of less than 0,1, 15 shots were blocked, 13 were off target, 1 hit the woodwork and 6 were saved. The saved ones had a combined xG of 0,38 and a post shot xG of 1,31, so they were actually taken fairly well considering the low xG value. For comparison, Darwin’s two shots had a combined xG of 0,79.
Blocked shots are little to worry about because the can result in corners or second attempts. A failed block might even end up in the net. Still, I expect some of our players to try to bait a block with a dummy instead of shooting first touch. Off target is mostly form, some of those are even tactical to finish the second phase after a corner to prevent a counter.
I have some gripes with the number of shots under 0,1 xG and overall low xG value of the saved shots, but we have strong finishers who can hit low value chances. Cody converted a 0,03 xG chance with his opener against Leicester.
Biggest point of improvement are our attacking set pieces. Maybe our next biggest transfer is Nicolas Jover 😆
I found it mad that Brentford used every foul in the middle of the pitch for their goalkeeper to take a long free kick. Was that just elaborate time wasting or did they actually hope to create from that?
Atomic Habits?
Up the Process Reds
You are a man of culture.
Finally got on your substack brother. Dig it man, and your podcast too. Thanks for the insight. I'll be consuming the wisdom on the regular. Up the Reds!
Really enjoy your work Josh, on here and the various podcasts with TAW and Redmen. Keeping a calm head and perspective when it gets crazy.
Thanks Dan, cheers mate.
Great stuff, Josh, love the analysis and perspective. Up the Reds!
Thought it was James Clear when I began reading the quote…glad to find out it indeed is. Need to get through the book.
Side note mate, I was close to cancelling my sub free trial but I really enjoy your analysis so will keep on paying 👍🏽
Ah thanks Rajan. Really great to hear, hope you stick around. Welcome to the team.
I tend to agree with the thrust of this piece, that good process produces good results in the long run. It's helpful when looking at a short-term batch of results as if we're playing poorly but winning you know not to get too ahead of yourself expectation-wise, and if we're playing well but struggling to convert that into points, you know that the wins will soon be racking up. It allows you to behave less excitably at each result, lurching from "Oh my God" (bad) to "Oh my God" (good) and back again.
However...
Having to take nearly 40 shots to score a goal isn't 'good process', it's struggling to score.
Yes, the build-up process is getting us into scoring positions but it's not creating good quality chances to score.
For instance, someone posted up a well-intentioned stat that Mo Salah had created seven chances, which was the most since dinosaurs roamed the Earth or whatever, but those seven shooting chances created only had an xG of 0.43 which means that Mo would have had to create 16 of those chances for us to get a goal, on average. So, poor quality chances then, in fact barely worthy of being called 'chances' at all. If Mo had created 16 shooting opportunities and they were all spurned/blocked/whatevered, Liverpool supporters would have been tearing their own heads off never mind tearing their hair out.
And the question that interests me is, why did we struggle to score with that many shots?
A squeaky bum time answer is that we could be seeing the return of the desperation seen in the second half of last season, as Núñez and Diaz swipe at the ball as soon as they near goal. I don't think we are, yet, but Darwin is very very prone to it, and Luisito, God love him, can defo drift into that same state as the thought of winning the big one begins to loom large. Nothing wrong with trying your absolute utmost for the club, but desperation is not helpful.
The most obvious answer, tactically, is that a packed defence is hard to break down. Everyone knows this. It's why we seem to be seeing more managers employ it against us, and the more successful we are the more likely we are to have to face it, I'd venture. In a way this could be a hugely positive sign that opposition managers start to view us like the Manchester City machine and there's really no hope for them but to sit deep and hope to jam into a 0-0 draw.
But I think it's much more problematic than that for us.
We have no width down the right. Haven't had for a long time since Pep Lijnders came up with the "invertoshambles" role for Trent. Bang goes the width down the right. I can't be arsed with heatmap charts, frankly I think they're next to useless. The eye test is enough to see we lack width down the right and have done for about two years now. Trent sits deeper under Slot, but still spends periods of the game wandering around the middle of the pitch, to no great effect, in fact I wish Slot would just put a stop to it as I thought he would when he came into the club.
We seem to build up way way more up the left hand side than the right, which is fine, there may be reasons for it, like Gakpo is a lot stronger on the ball, to hold play up, than Salah is. We almost seem to use Gakpo as a centre forward out wide in that respect. Clever? Probably?
But once we're up the pitch, having all our players loaded into the left-hand two-thirds of the pitch is not helpful at all. Against a packed defence you want to stretch the oppo defence right across the full width of the pitch. That creates space, and space creates better chances.
In other words, we're causing our own problems here, and we could help solve them. Easily.
If you go back to the late 80s side and into the early 90s, we stretched the opposition the full width of the pitch. Rob Jones wasn't much of a 'footballer', I don't think he ever scored for us, but he was dynamic, he ran all day, up and back, and helped crack open packed defences. Jason McAteer. I swear he clocked up 100 miles in sprints in just one game at Old Trafford.
Trent can't replicate that. If he crosses the halfway line these days he needs a taxi to get back in his own half before the final whistle goes. But it's up to Slot to produce a solution. Get Dom wider then. He actually looked good playing right wing for Leipzig in his last season there. It's not like he's a natural in midfield: his passing isn't great, and he's really not a central creator.
Probably seems curmudgeonly to mention all this when we're top of the table, and squeaked what could end up being a vital two point gain on Arsenal, but squeaked is the operative word. We could and should have been 1-0 down and things could have turned out very differently.
Trent loses the ball in midfield in the first ten minutes or so, turns round like a supertanker, barely raises a jog back towards goal, reluctantly, with all the enthusiasm of a teenage kid being told to come back to the table to finish off his iceberg lettuce, and then everyone sees it unfolding except Trent, the Brentford player making a move to the far post to get on the end of a cross from the right-hand side, still Trent can't be arsed accelerating, the cross comes in, the player is about to apply the easiest of tap-ins and... somehow we get away with it.
Trent must have got a John Heitinga rocket at half-time cos he was much better second half, in fact he did some very good work defensively, even sprinting back towards his own goal, but had that Brentford chance gone in we'd have been facing another Forest uphill slog with possibly only a point to show for it at best. Fine margins. It'd be nice if we addressed them.
Great comment. I too see some similarities with the last month and the latest few months of last season. I'm putting a lot of store on our xg as a way of calming myself but, like your say, most of that seems to be made by non big chances.
To put what you are saying into numbers, let’s look into all the shots excluding the two goals from Darwin. Out of the remaining 35 shots, 26 had an xG of less than 0,1, 15 shots were blocked, 13 were off target, 1 hit the woodwork and 6 were saved. The saved ones had a combined xG of 0,38 and a post shot xG of 1,31, so they were actually taken fairly well considering the low xG value. For comparison, Darwin’s two shots had a combined xG of 0,79.
Blocked shots are little to worry about because the can result in corners or second attempts. A failed block might even end up in the net. Still, I expect some of our players to try to bait a block with a dummy instead of shooting first touch. Off target is mostly form, some of those are even tactical to finish the second phase after a corner to prevent a counter.
I have some gripes with the number of shots under 0,1 xG and overall low xG value of the saved shots, but we have strong finishers who can hit low value chances. Cody converted a 0,03 xG chance with his opener against Leicester.
Biggest point of improvement are our attacking set pieces. Maybe our next biggest transfer is Nicolas Jover 😆
I found it mad that Brentford used every foul in the middle of the pitch for their goalkeeper to take a long free kick. Was that just elaborate time wasting or did they actually hope to create from that?
Brentford are shithouses, data-heavy, but still shithouses.