Liverpool's attack is underperforming collectively at a level considerably worse than at any other time since Mohamed Salah has been at Anfield, according to several metrics.
The problem of late, in matches against the likes of West Brom and Newcastle United, has been creating chances, but across the entire season so far, Liverpool are not even taking the chances as well as they should be, with their finishing a more long-term issue.
"Liverpool's expected goals has taken quite a hit this season," explained Josh Williams on the Analysing Anfield podcast.
"In 2017/18, Salah's first season, Liverpool overperformed their expected goals in attack by 11.9 goals - so they scored 11.9 more goals than the average team would have if they had taken the same shots from the same locations.
"The following year, Liverpool overperformed by 10.7 goals and then last season, they won the league and overperformed again by 10.3 goals.
"This season, Liverpool have currently underperformed by exactly one - and this is all excluding penalties.
"So Liverpool have gone from being a team that scores 10 or 11 more each season than expected - which comes down to finishing and getting goals from set-pieces, for which expected goals would value quite low - to a minus one underperformance.
"It is like going from finishing like a superhuman team to finishing like an average team, and that has taken a big hit on the overall results."
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"We talk about the regression to the mean but I don't think the mean for Liverpool is the expected goals number," added David Hughes.
"I don't think the average is what Liverpool are - they are expected to be above average. But you are maybe not looking for it to be as high as it was last season, but somewhere in between [then and now].
"This is not going to continue and Liverpool will start scoring goals again, but not as much of an overperformance as what they were doing last season."
Compared to the rest of the current top six, too, the statistics are worrying.
While they might not have been able to finish as well as they have over the previous campaigns, they would hope to be at least average among those chasing the Champions League spots.
"Over the past three seasons, Liverpool have overperformed in attack by 32.9 goals, so they have scored 33 or so more goals than the average team would," Williams continued.
"Compare that to rivals in the big six and the only team that has overperformed to a greater extent in Man City, and much of that is down to the first season where they overperformed by about 22 goals.
"You could almost say that Liverpool are due a bit of luck because this is a team that tends to overperform by 10 and they are underperforming by one.
"But the current top six in the Premier League are all overperforming in attack except Liverpool.
"Spurs by six, Everton by 4.9, Man United by 3.3, Chelsea three and Man City by exactly one.
"So hats off to Liverpool that they are still in the top four without overperforming, but it has to turn around quickly because you need goals to win the league - it is kind of as simple as that."
