Tough Week Over. Liverpool's Season Gets Easier From Here; Rivals' Get Harder
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Yesterday was tough to take, but most XIs without the talents, power and/or pace of Mo Salah, Dominik Szoboszlai, Darwin Núñez, Wataru Endō, Joël Matip and then the high-flying Conor Bradley – four days after another Big Six clash – will not go away to a title-challenging rival (aided by a homer ref) and expect to win, especially once Ibrahima Konaté was sent off.
Liverpool have now had five harsh sendings off this season, four of them in ‘Big’ games; three of them in the only two defeats.
Núñez, with a badly injured foot, came on, as did the very rusty Thiago and Andy Robertson, each returning from many months out. Trent Alexander-Arnold had lost fitness and rhythm (and confidence, it seemed) in his month-long absence, too. He faced arguably his toughest opponent, so it can’t have been an easy game to come into.
So, several starters and important subs injured, absent or not 100%. And a shorter turnaround for Liverpool than Arsenal, with the Reds not really able to rotate much. It was a less-sparky display, and understandably so.
Bradley wasn’t the only youngster capable of making an impact who was absent, with Stefan Bajcetic still not back, and Ben Doak out for the season, at a point where he’d be incredibly handy to have. As I said yesterday, real pace and energy was missing from the side, to the point where it most closely resembled last season’s team (in part due to less time to prepare and coming off a harder game than Arsenal faced).
But as I noted in yesterday’s post-match piece on the Main Hub, Liverpool have had by far the toughest mid-point turnaround since MW19, and that’s pain now for gain later.
Arsenal’s four games?
Fulham 2–1 Arsenal
Arsenal 5–0 Crystal Palace
Nottingham Forest 1–2 Arsenal
Arsenal 3–1 Liverpool
Man City’s?
Manchester City 2–0 Sheffield United
Newcastle United 2–3 Manchester City
Manchester City 3–1 Burnley
Brentford v Manchester City
I said about a month ago (maybe more) that this would be Man City’s time to close the gap. But, their problems will arrive later (albeit their most recent game same their injuries down to zero).
City also have to come to Anfield, as do Spurs.
I also talked a lot about what I called Density and Intensity of fixtures: the difficulty of the opposition, but also how much time there is between games, particularly difficult games. (First doing so in December, then again in January.)
People are all too aware of Groups of Death in football competitions. But there seems no grasp of such a run in league sequences, as everyone plays everyone twice, right? That fact clouds people’s perspectives.
Except Liverpool have essentially played in a five-team Group of Death since MW19, with four games.
Liverpool 4–2 Newcastle United
Bournemouth 0–4 Liverpool
Liverpool 4–1 Chelsea
Arsenal 3–1 Liverpool
While results don’t consistently carry over from season to season, Liverpool’s record from these same fixtures last season was loss, win, draw, loss. Four points, to the nine this time, with 13 goals scored in four games without their regular top scorer.
Liverpool also got shafted by the ref in this fixture in 2022/23 (Michael Oliver having an unusually bad day), with a phantom penalty against, and a clear penalty for handball by Gabriel ignored. (Now, the Reds just get Mancunian refs and/or VARs every week.)
One of the few times I’ve seen sequence difficulty mentioned is when Patrick Vieira had a horrific run of difficult games, got sacked, and in came Roy Hodgson to sweep up a few wins once it got easier. Even then, it only got mentioned in passing.
After the World Cup, starting in January 2023, Palace’s league games, in order, were:
Tottenham Hotspur
Chelsea
Manchester United
Newcastle United
Manchester United
Brighton & Hove Albion
Brentford
Manchester City
Aston Villa
Manchester City
Brighton & Hove Albion
Arsenal
Given that Brighton are also Palace’s quasi-derby opponent, I would argue that it’s the toughest run of fixtures I’ve ever seen in a league campaign, and that the 10 that followed, when Hodgson took over, were about as easy as it gets (only a single game from the Big Six + Newcastle + Brighton, and that was a shaky Spurs).
Go back a few months in this season, and Liverpool’s away form was also said to be poor; a frequent comment in the autumn. “Struggling away from home” … having gone to Spurs, Newcastle, Brighton, Man City and Chelsea. (And the Spurs defeat remains a black stain on this year’s Premier League and the PGMOL.)
So I said the away form would improve, as this was not a representative sample of away games, but a quirk of the fixture list computer. (Losing at Arsenal is also not a massive shock, and even less so on the back of playing Chelsea.)
I noted after eight and then nine games on this here ZenDen that Spurs, while improving, were not top “on merit”, but due mostly to easy games (and terrible VAR work in their favour against Liverpool).
So when some key players got injured, it coincided with a run of tougher games anyway; them returning would not make the fixture list easier. As such, they look a good team again, but what Gary Neville was smoking when he said they would challenge for the title ahead of Liverpool (once these players were back) needs investigating.
So, look again at the Relative Performance Index from that time that I posted on here, and see how it pegged Spurs as ‘lucky’ (not in terms of results, but in terms of fixtures faced).
While you can only beat what’s in front of you, it’s clearly easier to play weak sides in a run of games.
Objective Data: Liverpool The Best Team in the League This Season; 9 OCT 2023
The Good News
Now this is where it gets good, because as bad as the Reds made Newcastle and Chelsea look at Anfield, the key thing in my post-match article yesterday was that Liverpool have now played them both home and away, and Arsenal home and away, and even tricky Bournemouth home and away.
For all their fluctuating form, Chelsea and Newcastle can beat good teams on their day.
As well as losing at Arsenal and Bournemouth last season, the Reds hadn’t beaten Chelsea in the league in four years.
Let’s compare the run-ins again, and in particular, the pinch points.
This is assuming all clubs reach the semifinals of the European competitions. All teams are judged on form and quality (and cost of team/squad) as of a few weeks ago, but form can obviously alter.
(Luton would now be a 7 and not an 8, for example, albeit Everton’s position in the table is skewing things, as they are not relegation form in terms of points won this season. Chelsea are still a 2 based on club size and budget, and big-game potential.)
As I’ve said before, City’s run-in last season was interspersed with easy, pressure-release games, to make for a very odd pattern of tough game, easy game, tough game, easy game. (Their only two consecutive tough games included a 1-0 home win against a Chelsea team that won only one of Frank Lampard’s 11 games as caretaker.)
Arsenal’s fixture list is not quite as dense and intense for the most part, but unlike City, they are not used to juggling Champions League games. However, they have a potentially insane run of more than a dozen games on the horizon.
They’ve also got a lot of players with a lot of minutes under their belts; far more than anyone for Liverpool, as I’ve also shown recently. I’d wager on Arsenal tiring as they did last season; indeed, this season has seen them rack up more minutes. They’re a bit more experienced, but this is a new challenge.
Those 13 potential games look brutal, and I could see Arsenal failing to win half of them. Obviously the Man City vs Arsenal game after the international break (which I deem a 5-day period due to the variation for player involvement), will be helpful to Liverpool either way. Spurs away just days before the Champions League semis if they get that far? (And they should get past Porto.) But a lot depends on who Arsenal draw if they get past Porto. So it could be a fair bit easier, but they do still have to go to City, Spurs, Man United and Brighton in this period.
Right now, both Wolves and Bournemouth are pushing to be 4 on difficulty, not 5 and 6; but it’s hard to know for sure with smaller, inconsistent clubs/teams.
For Liverpool, it’s generally fairly easy on paper until the final three games, and it’s hard to know what shape the opposition will be in by then. (Safely qualified for the Champions League and on the beach? Out of contention and on the beach?) I’ve said before, it’s like your opponent leaving their best penalty taker for kick five in a shootout; they may not even get to take one.
There are a lot of “1” (toughest) teams left in the Champions League, but only Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen (9th in the European Club Elo Index) are a “1” in the Europa League, Liverpool aside.
The chances are that Liverpool will play much easier games, as obviously it’s not the elite European competition. But Leverkusen would be tough.
Liverpool could face English grudge matches against Aston Villa, West Ham or Brighton, but Arsenal and Man City could face each other in the Champions League in either March or April, and destroy each other’s league seasons either side of those two games.
None of this means Liverpool will win the league – just that the hardest part of the season is now behind the Reds, including visits to Man City, Arsenal and Spurs, probably the three other best teams this season.
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