Jurgen Klopp has given a lengthy interview to Sport Bild in Germany, which has been translated by Sport Witness.
In it, the Liverpool boss has described the way we’ve struggled to finish chances this season – combined with how leaky the backline has occasionally looked and the manner in which we’ve gifted goals to the opposition.
“The opponent usually doesn’t need a lot of chances against us because we make big mistakes, insane ones that can almost be described as slapstick,” he said.
“On the other hand, we create a lot of chances, in the “expected goals” we are still second behind Man City in the Premier League, but far from them in the ones we actually scored. This problem has been going on throughout the season.”
Many fans will not appreciate hearing about xG, the new favourite stat of the football nerd who prefers to read numbers about the game than the game itself, but it’s not an inconsequential point.
xG indicates we should have scored plenty more – and you can look to the multiple situations we had in January and February where our forwards failed to take gilt-edged chances.
In fact, Roberto Firmino has the worst goals:xG ratio in the Premier League for strikers.
The good thing is, xG is usually indicative of future performance…
It will take a miracle for Liverpool to finish in the top four now – but other teams will drop points and if we rack up a few more wins – who knows?