Written by Matt Stevenson
Here’s the xG from the Liverpool game. Liverpool dominated the chances although the xG is considerably helped by the contentious penalty and then the rebound falling kindly for Mo Salah. We had a goal disallowed (I still think wrongly) in the first minute, but this doesn’t show up on the xG as Anthony was judged offside – which he was from the initial pass. But we went up 1-0 up soon after the ball fell to Semenyo who shot cleanly across Alisson (rated 1 in 14). Worth noting is this goal came from a high press with Philip winning the ball. The next 15 minutes were quiet, although Van Dijk headed against the bar in the 5th minute (rated 1 in 20) then they were a flurry of small chances for Liverpool. The equaliser came in the 27th minute, with good skill from Diaz flicking the ball up to acrobatically score (1 in 11). Liverpool were dominating now, but creating no clear chances until the ref gave a penalty for Rothwell’s slight contact on Szoboszlai, which has unanimously called soft at best. Salah saw his penalty save by Neto (76%) but the rebound was put home (67%) – accounting for multiple chances this was a combined xG of 0.92. There were a couple of half chances for Liverpool before the break and at half-time the xG was Liverpool 1.55 AFCB 0.09.
The second half started quietly although there were chances for Jota and Gakpo, both of which were blocked and rated 1 in 8 and Salah had a big chance (rated 3 in 10). Then MacAllister was sent off for what seemed an orange card tackle. AFCB were 2-1 down but had an extra man – although unfortunately the score quickly became 3-1. A shot from Szoboszlai took a deflection and Neto couldn’t hang on, with the ball rebounding out to Jota for a big chance (2 in 3). Jota had another attempt (rated 1 in 5) as AFCB struggled to create anything. In the 69th minute, a chance fell to Moore who couldn’t find the net (rated 3 in 10). In the last 10 minutes, we pushed forward more, Kluivert having a shot saved (rated 1 in 3) and Philip missing (rated nearly 2 in 5) when he and Kluivert went for the same ball. In additional time, Traore had a shot saved rated 1 in 9. At the end of the match, the xG was Liverpool 3.36 AFCB 1.50. Without the soft penalty, the game would have looked more even.
Looking at the average positions the one thing that struck me was that Kerkez (3) played in a more advanced role than Anthony (32). Aarons (37) too was higher than the centre-backs but not as high as the nearest players, Christie (10) and Semenyo (24). Immediately after it went 3-1, Christie and Anthony were replaced with Moore (21) and Kluivert (19) coming on, bith pushed up further than the people they replaced. As I don’t have positions at different times we can’t tell how this affected Solanke’s (9) position. Thirteen minutes later Semenyo (24) and Rothwell (8) were withdrawn being replaced by Brooks (7) and Kelly (5). Brooks played more as a conventional right winger, Kelly played at centre-back with Senesi pushed further forward as a defensive midfielder. The last throw of the dice was Traore (22) for Senesi. From the radio, it was hard to tell how we were lining up, but we had Solanke, Moore, Brooks, Philip, Kluivert and Traore all on the pitch pushing for a goal.
The full backs had the most touches of the ball with 66 for Aarons and 65 for Kerkez as unsurprisingly AFCB had fewer touches than against West Ham. Kerkez and Philip had equal highest touches in Liverpool’s half (31) with Philip having 19 in the final third shading Solanke’s 18.
As in the West Ham game, we had 23 touches in the opposition’s penalty area, Solanke having 7 of these with the rest spread through the team.
Senesi and Zabarnyi attempted the most passes, 38 and 37 respectively. Philip attempted most in the opposition’s half and final third. Of the starting 11, Zabarnyi had the highest accuracy with 81% and Anthony didn’t have his best game with 47% from 15 passes.
AFCB attempted 10 crosses, being successful with 4 (from 4 separate players). No one was particularly profligate.
Our players tried to take on a man 25 times, being successful 13 times. Aarons tried the most (5) failing each time, Anthony was equally unsuccessful with 4 attempts. Semenyo and Traore both succeeded 3 times, from 4 and 3 attempts. Traore’s record was particularly impressive from a short cameo.
We created 8 chances (two big – one from Brooks and one from Semenyo). Brooks created two chances from about 20 minutes Liverpool created 15 chances with none big with a quirk of Opta meaning that Salah’s goal and Jota’s goal which were big chances were not created as Neto had saved/parried the initial shot. Diaz’s and Semenyo’s goals were not classified as big chances.
We had 13 attempts (3 big for Moore, Kluivert and Billing) noting that chances can be provided after saves, deflections, or a defensive error and not created. We hit the target 5 times. Liverpool had 26 attempts, 4 big, and hit the target ten times.
AFCB won 11 of 32 aerials duals. Kerkez won 3 out of 4 and Christie, Rothwell and Solanke all had zero wins from 3 duels.
AFCB won 18 out of 35 tackles. Only Kerkez (5 from 6) and Senesi (4 from 7) had a success percentage above 50%.
Senesi had most defensive actions with 18 followed by Zabarnyi with 15. Kerkez made most interceptions, Senesi made most recoveries and clearances whilst Zabarnyi made four blocks.
According to Opta AFCB made no errors that led to a chance (and therefore, by extension a goal).
Kerkez and Senesi gave away the most fouls (2) whilst Aarons was our most fouled player (5 times) and Diaz could consider himself lucky he wasn’t booked for some of these and slowing the game down. The booking count of 3 for AFCB and 1 for Liverpool is potentially not surprising, although MacAllister’s red card was unexpected from the reaction of AFCB players.
Billing had the highest xG (0.41) Semenyo had 0.18 but we need more data to see patterns form. Brooks had the bulk of the xA (0.19) with no one else being above 0.10.
AFCB had an xGc of 3.08 and let in 3, so did marginally better than expected.
Can you rephase your comment about the soft penalty. From the opposite angle it is quite clear that Rothwell never touched the Hungarian. It was blatant cheating.