Strange one. Poor management over the busy schedule? Klopps negativity around Christmas schedule rubbing off on the players? If you tell someone they are tired enough times will believe it.
We play a very physical game and there are two ways that could impact us during the busy winter period. 1) the congestion of fixtures don't give the players enough time to recover. 2) other, less physical teams can keep up with our tempo easier in the cooler months. It could also just be statistical noise... A mere coincidence.
Let me put it this way to you, the average block of 4 results over the same blocks shows where our form dips are and I'm just pointing out that you cannot get 98 and 99 points having a disaster of a month.
If you think about it like this, you go through a long period of 2 games a week in europe, pile into the festive fun and come out the other side ready to collapse having played a pot of the same players all the time. The reserves are at thier peak in August and are stopping off the level slowly as preseason gets further into the past. Honestly players cone in and have not played and don't look great for 2 or 3 games. Further its 4 months since you've drilled 3 times a day in the system so the thing loses some cohesion. Klopp then gets a couple weeks of training back in with reserves playing the Cup etc and they start settling into the run in. We have to see that our cohesion has been dropping not since Jan 1 but from Dec 1 and before. The results showed less and less effectiveness and I've commented on this before. Eg wolves. Very poor game, got out of jail. We have been playing with midfield issues for months and honestly the forwards were pressing away unsupported while the back line is pushed to high up with too many gaps. We look good for 30mins, maybe a full half and then more and more gaps show up. Chelsea ran us off the park. How we were 2-0 up is beyond anyone. It's just the right chances fell and they didn't hammer us. Spurs the same. Really hurt us. Leicester laughed at us, got one break and scored. It's about closing space send passing lanes and forcing sides to cough up chances in broken play. If we can't close the space by getting tight then teams can break on us. The difference between us and arsenal imo is xhaka was a moron and kicked at the player. Actually Tierney and Gabriel went pressing but never got close and one pass (average pass) from robbo put jota in. How many times are we seeing players get in at our cbs the same way? We can't get close as the legs are not there. Not henderson, not fabinho, not ox
Game V bottom half Games played 11 Goals scored 32 Goal conceded 4 Games won 10 Games drawn 1 Games lost 0 Win ratio 91% Draw ratio 9% Loss ratio 0% Goals per game 2.909091 Goals conceded per game 0.363636 Palace won't be looking forward to our game I suppose. the only two lower teams to score against us was 3 v brentford. and a consolation goal for everton by Grey. the record v top half is GRIM reading.
Bottom half slaughtering Games played 12 Goals scored 35 Goal conceded 5 Games won 11 Games drawn 1 Games lost 0 Win ratio 92% Draw ratio 8% Loss ratio 0% Goals per game 2.91 Goals conceded per game 0.41 the sad thing is we only have 7 more bottom half games to go. the good news is we only need the 7 wins for 4th. Our next league match is home to Leicester (top half) we owe them for the league loss at their shtty gorund. the problem is it doesn't look to promising. Top half grim read: Games played 10 Goals scored 21 Goal conceded 13 Games won 3 Games drawn 5 Games lost 2 Win ratio 30% Draw ratio 50% Loss ratio 20% Goals per game 2.1 Goals conceded per game 1.3 Remaining top half games Leicester H Arsenal A West ham H Man Utd H Man City A Brighton A Spurs H wolves H The thing is we have a lot of home games in there and the two away matches that i see are arsenal and brighton away and those are frankly winnable. The city match is the key one. I hope we can improve on that leaky defence due to having more at home that are now more suiting us. As we stand I think we will get 86 points. our max is 96. I think we've need 94 to win the league with city going as they are/were
I love Trent ... I also really like Bruno Guimraes so will be interesting to see how he gets on at Newcastle. please log in to view this image
yeah but.... its a rate, so a couple of brusting runs going nowhere and he is right up there cos he doesn't play that much. In the end this goes back to what we discussed before. as a CM he is running ahead of the ball so its all good til a side is set and he's useless. As a RW he socred 2 in 2 gales against lower half sides running in the box and Robertson hitting his zone. its not easy for a jota to pass the ball forward his passes forward should be shots lol.
gavi stat is also interesting. It speaks to barca's style. no switch of play, no long passes. all short and to feet.
It’s annoying he isn’t consistent because def offers something rest don’t in that he can drive forward with the ball which forces defenders out of position and helps open gaps. When he’s on form is a real asset to the team as that shows when you compare him to the other CM’s
Here are some numbers on our new no. 23 ... Diaz's number looks very good when comparing to Mo, Mane and Jota prior them to joining LFC. However, we do need to factor in the quality of their respective leagues . please log in to view this image Now this is where it gets interesting. There have been a lot of studies on how to compare players in different leagues, and they came up with an index which can be applied. As Mane and Jota were both in the PL, their numbers will remain the same however Mo and Diaz's numbers from above are now adjusted (see chart below). Whilst this index is not fool proof, you can imagine the boffins at LFC will have their own way of factoring in league quality when looking at players and their numbers. As per below, Diaz still looks good compared to the rest ... please log in to view this image Note: the database used for the models above and stats contains data about 28,000 players and about 21,000 matches of the championship leagues of 10 countries and 7 seasons from 2009/2010 to 2015/2016.
I'm glad you said that, MITO. The below chart shows their best season prior to joining LFC ... Diaz is currently in great form this year for Porto. As you say, we may have nabbed him at the right time ... please log in to view this image
100% he's done a settling in for first season in Europe and has absolutely accelerated this season. The thing is its goals isn't it? How they interact now will be the next step and if he now has a real quality set of team.mates he could absolutely explode onto the scene.
