It looked very much like the first game of the season for both teams, with us having had a severely disrupted season meaning there was a lack of match fitness in key players as well. Our highest scoring players on Whoscored, Aarons (7.3) and Lees-Melou (7.2) were equal with most Liverpool players and had as much pre season as we managed. Pukki and Cantwell worked hard but also tired early, having lost time to isolation and injury. With two pre-season games cancelled due to covid isolations our task became that much harder. My hope is that DF will consider giving Sargent and Tzolis a bigger role at ManCity, given that they both have had full pre-seasons and competitive games prior to their arrival.
If Infogol assign an xG value in multiple shot situations by simply summing the individual values of the shots, the fault is Infogol's. Compare, for example, StatsBomb's approach as outlined here by FBRef (scroll down to relevant passage).
I watched the game on TV and as strange as it may sound, but I thought I was more encouraged this season than the last one in the premiership. The players switched off after the foul not foul on Pukki for the first goal. About when Liverpool made substitutions I thought, Norwich look tired- Farke make some changes. I don't think it was his best game as manager, but I thought we were better defensively once Cantwell and Rashica switched. I though Giannioulis had a good game and there are certainly positives to take out of it especially with the disrupted pre-season. Need to get some more bodies in the box before we cross it. Anyway Man City next, what could go wrong?
Yes, I am saying Infogol’s use of xG is nonsensical there - that is what I wrote. But they are hardly alone, see here: https://www.fotmob.com/livescores/3609936/stats/norwich-city-vs-liverpool?date=20210814 And here: https://understat.com/match/16383 Interesting that it assigns a 1% chance to Cantwell’s shot from wide versus Infogol’s 9%. That’s a huge difference. Emphasises how unreliable xG is.
This is our defence at full strength and we let in 3 could have been more . Buy a centre back or we won't improve on our average of 2 goals conceded per game stat and we certainly don't look like scoring 3 a game.
And we will be less under cooked the further we get into the season. We are in the situation of using our first few games as pre-season run outs to get fitness and team cohesion up to spec. And DD, SW and DF are fully aware that we need defensive recruits and are certainly working very long hours to do so.
Thanks DH - a very encouraging read which bodes well for the season once we get through our usual slow start which has been increased by covid this year.
