With the transfer window now closed until January it appears that Liverpool will take on the first half of their 2021/22 campaign with essentially the same squad as they had last season.
Gini Wijnaldum has left, Ibrahima Konate has joined, and the other departures are players who didn’t feature too often for the club in 2020/21.
It’s reasonable to say that many Kopites feel the club have left themselves short and would have preferred them to have signed one or two more players this summer.
Liverpool will argue that they have enough cover for the 50 to 60 matches which lie ahead over the next nine months.
That’s certainly true in midfield, where eight players look to be competing for three starting positions. After the troubles experienced last season, the centre of the defence appears to be well stocked too.
But there are still certain areas of the squad where a serious injury would be problematic, and a closer look at the statistics highlights the issues the Reds may have to face.
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Perhaps the biggest concern is at right-back. Trent Alexander-Arnold has redefined what the position can provide to a team in the last few years, so it’s inevitable that there would be a shortfall in output if he were to be absent.
In his 115 league starts in his normal position, Alexander-Arnold has provided an average of 0.27 expected assists for every 90 minutes he has played ( per Understat ).
Joe Gomez has made 24 starts at right-back over the years and offered up just 0.08 expected assists per 90, while Neco Williams has provided 0.11 in total from his 355 minutes starting in that position.
This is not to criticise those players, as they are being compared to probably the best right-back in the world, but it does illustrate what would be missing if Alexander-Arnold were unavailable for any length of time. He’s one of the most creative players in the game, irrespective of position.
On the other side of the defence, Kostas Tsimikas as hinted that he would be an able deputy for Andy Robertson. He created four chances in the 2-0 win over Burnley and provided an excellent cross to set up the opening goal for Diogo Jota. The Greek left-back set up a late chance for the same forward in his cameo against Chelsea last weekend too.
But while the duo of Alexander-Arnold and Tsimikas would keep up the creativity levels from the full-back positions if Robertson were injured, have Liverpool left themselves too short of cover up front?
Takumi Minamino and Divock Origi didn’t get huge amounts of opportunities last season, but they played a combined total of 471 minutes in the Premier League and only had the former’s strike at Selhurst Park to show for it. Minamino’s record of two goals in 717 minutes on loan with Southampton did little to suggest he could be a regular scorer in England either.
And they also don’t have the underlying numbers to match up to the Reds’ illustrious quartet of main forwards.
Since the start of 2017/18, Origi has averaged 0.37 expected goals per 90 minutes for Liverpool in the league, while Minamino has been a shade behind at 0.35 in his limited game time.
In the same period with Liverpool, Roberto Firmino has averaged 0.42, Sadio Mane 0.47 while Diogo Jota and Mohamed Salah have both averaged 0.54 (plus penalties in the latter’s case).
However, it’s also important to look at how the team has functioned with different players within it, and this is where it gets interesting.
FBRef keep a record of the goal difference a team amasses when a particular player is on the pitch, and how it compares to when they are not included in the side.
The Reds’ player with the widest margin between their ‘with and without’ figures last season was Joel Matip. Liverpool’s goal difference was 1.43 per 90 minutes better when he was able to play as opposed to when he didn’t.
Directly behind him in the standings were Minamino (+1.27), Naby Keita (+1.03), Caoimhin Kelleher (+0.86) and then after Mane in fifth place came Neco Williams (+0.82). These less heralded players may not have offered as much individually as the men they deputised for, but the team as a whole was more effective.
The obvious caveat is that the players in question didn’t play too much and their sample sizes are therefore too small to prove anything one way or another.
The numbers do at least suggest that Liverpool will be fine if they have to call on some of their superstars’ understudies though, and the transfer team at the club will have to hope that this proves to be the case.
