- 7 hours ago
Liverpool are now on their worst run of form since 1953, and the questions about the manager's future are being asked. But after such an incredible season, and so much money spent in the summer, what has gone wrong for Arne Slot... and why can't he seem to fix it?Adam Clery looks at what's happening both on and off the pitch to find out.
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00:00Right, hello everybody, welcome to the Adam Cleary Football Channel, I'm, well, obviously Adam Cleary, and what's wrong with Liverpool,
00:08question mark?
00:08Yes, I'm the man who just a few short weeks ago watched them walk all over Real Madrid and said,
00:13Aha, yes, of course Arna Slott has fixed the problems with his wayward sons, and they will surely now go
00:20on a run.
00:20And I mean, that was half right, they have gone on a run, it's just that said run was absolutely
00:25minging,
00:27and now there is literally talk about Arna Slott getting fired from his job in the same calendar year as
00:33he guided them to that quite astonishing Premier League title win.
00:37So what is actually still the problem here, and why is it not getting any better?
00:44Well, let's explore.
00:48All right, so fundamentally, what we are looking at today is this.
00:5355th minute, at home, you are in your 4-4-2 slash 4-2-4 hybrid press, you may be
01:00set up okay-ish, and yet,
01:03Marrow Jr. here is able to run from this spot into the final third without anyone in red getting anywhere
01:12near him.
01:13He picks out a pass with this much space, and Till makes one simple run off the fullback,
01:19and scores a goal from 10 yards out. That is about as easy as it ever gets.
01:25Like, honestly, the ease with which he gets from here to here is absolutely staggering,
01:31and if you are a Liverpool fan, you've seen some variation of this goal time and time again this season.
01:38This team has just been too easy to beat, it's been too easy to attack,
01:43and most importantly, it's been too easy to get into good goal-scoring positions.
01:48Forest at home, they're caught cold off a quick free kick, out wide,
01:51Hutchinson skips past two players like they're not even there,
01:55and when the shot comes in, just flip the angle to the wide one.
02:00This is the goal scorer.
02:01You've got three players just casually walking back as this situation develops,
02:05and by the time they decide to react to this very obvious danger here, it is way too late.
02:12Too easy to beat, too easy to attack, and too easy to get into good goal-scoring positions.
02:20And I could show you something like this for pretty much every single game Liverpool have played this season,
02:24but that is no way for either me or you to be living our lives,
02:28so I'm just going to go all the way back to August to show you it's been happening all season.
02:33Semenyo gets the ball on the edge of his own box.
02:35He runs the entire length of the pitch, is not challenged for the ball one single time,
02:42and if he had been feeling especially generous,
02:46he could have rolled it to either of these two entirely unmarked on the edge of the box.
02:52Too easy to beat, too easy to attack, too easy to get into good goal-scoring positions.
03:00Oh, and if you really want some fun, just remember this PSV goal here, right?
03:03Bournemouth, in that game at the start of the season, well, they do that.
03:07They bypass Salah in the press.
03:09They run down this side entirely unchallenged into the final third
03:12before picking someone out who's gotten the wrong side of Kerkhez.
03:16And, yeah, it's there right at the end of November, and it's there right at the start of August.
03:21Teams are aware that you can do this to Liverpool, so are doing this to Liverpool.
03:27So the eyes, these things, sorry, I found some sweets,
03:30they tell us that Liverpool are not at it off the ball.
03:36Teams are finding them not easy to play against.
03:40They're still quite good, but certainly a lot easier than they were last season.
03:45Curtis Jones came out after the PSV game and said this exact thing.
03:48They're not making it difficult for anybody.
03:50They're not getting themselves stuck in.
03:52They're not standing up as a team and being counted.
03:55But if we look at the data, what does that tell us that statistically and specifically are the problems?
04:03Well, for starters, you may have seen that graph that Sky showed at the weekend,
04:07which if I can dig out, I will put on screen now.
04:10But if not, I'm just going to be standing here waving my arms around like an idiot.
04:13And that showed that for combined tackles and interceptions,
04:17they had a massive drop-off this season.
04:19But weirdly, what they failed to show you with that graph was it's not just that they've had a big
04:24drop-off
04:25for the number of tackles and interceptions,
04:27it's that they are now bottom of the league for the combined number of tackles and interceptions.
04:33Now, yes, you're right, important context to that.
04:35It is partially explainable by Liverpool being the highest possession team in the league.
04:41Because it stands to reason, doesn't it?
04:42The more of the ball you have, the less time you have to spend winning it back.
04:46So it doesn't necessarily make you bad if you've got the lowest number of tackles and interceptions
04:51while you've got the highest number of possession.
04:54But it is the scale of the drop-off from last season that matters.
04:58If you look at it per 90 minutes, it was around about 25 per game last season
05:03to less than 20 in this one, which is a drop-off of around about 20%.
05:07Now, that might not sound like loads, but if I said to you,
05:12I'm going to take 20% of your savings or 20% of your ear or something,
05:17all of a sudden you see that is quite substantial.
05:19But what's really weird about all of this is that the numbers say they're actually still
05:23one of the most aggressive teams in the Premier League for trying to win the ball.
05:29They're ranked fourth for both the total number of pressing sequences
05:33and for their passes per defensive action, which you've never heard of that before.
05:36That is, how many passes will you let the opposition have before you can try and get into them?
05:42It's a good measure of a team's aggressiveness.
05:45And Liverpool, according to that, are still very aggressive.
05:48Theoretically, those are the numbers of a team who are really in your face.
05:52Like, it's only Bournemouth, Arsenal and Brighton,
05:54the league's three best pressers who are ahead of Liverpool.
05:58And yet, as we've seen, they're bottom of the league for tackles and interception
06:03and third bottom here for the duels, for winning their battles.
06:06So they are doing this a lot, but they're clearly doing it very ineffectively.
06:11Ineffectually. Bad.
06:12So what we can learn from these two seemingly contradictory bits of information
06:16is that they are still setting out and instructed to be as good off the ball as they were last
06:22season,
06:23but it is fundamentally not working for them.
06:27And obviously, I'm not going to be the first person to point this out.
06:30In fact, there may well be, like, a roller banner and some confetti goes off.
06:34For it being the one millionth time it's been mentioned on the internet this season,
06:39but losing Luis Diaz from the squad,
06:41and losing Sir Bozlai primarily from the front line,
06:45has really unsettled their press.
06:50No? No. Shame.
06:53They were their key players in regards to their off-the-ball structure last season.
06:56And if you look at the four players who've most frequently featured
07:00in this first line of pressure this season,
07:02Florian Verts, he tries his best, but he isn't very impactful.
07:05Gakpo's numbers are really average.
07:08Eketike's numbers are, you know, not bad, not great.
07:11And Salah is just a complete non-entity in a defensive sense,
07:15which obviously is not new.
07:18That's never been his game.
07:19And you compare all of this to Diaz last season,
07:22and tackles in the middle third, tackles and interceptions,
07:25all astronomically high for a player who is in a team that sees over 60% of the ball.
07:31Those are the numbers you expect from someone who is in the bottom half of the league,
07:36who is sitting back for most games.
07:38And the context of the possession, I think, is important to keep in mind.
07:41Because if you go back and you look at Verts and Eketike's numbers,
07:45I think they're okay, like, given the amount of ball that they see
07:49and how long they've been at the club.
07:50But this here from Diaz, that is the bar.
07:53That is the standard.
07:55That is what you have to do to succeed.
07:57Stuff like this, little moments like this.
07:59This is what it has to look like if you want to play this way.
08:03And that's why fixing it is not just as simple as like,
08:06oh, well, let's stick Sobber's lie back in the front line.
08:09He'll make a difference there.
08:11This is not something you can sort with one player.
08:14It is a team problem that requires more from the team as a whole.
08:19And as for the Mo Salah issue, that is just an accepted part of his game.
08:23It is part of the reason why Liverpool press in this 4-2-4,
08:27because it allows Ryan Gravenberch to cover across into that space behind.
08:31It's never been a massive issue before, because of the amount of goals he was scoring.
08:35But teams are just wise to this now.
08:37They pin Gravenberch with another marker, so the space behind is totally free.
08:41And they play into it.
08:42So the reality is that Liverpool probably did need to adapt their play style already going into this season.
08:49But at the same time, they've also become a lot less effective at actually playing it.
08:53And just here is a seemingly random, but I think interesting stat I found, right?
08:57Liverpool currently top the league for chances conceded from fouls.
09:03Or, to put that another way, Liverpool are conceding the highest number of free kicks in goal-scoring positions around
09:11the box.
09:11And does that fact not just scream, or at least imply to you, desperation?
09:17Like, the system has fallen apart, people are bearing down on goal, and all you can do is throw a
09:22foot in.
09:22Like, just bear in mind, Liverpool are nowhere near the top of the league for the total number of fouls.
09:28Like, again, because of that high possession statistic.
09:31But they are giving away the highest number around the box.
09:35And that just should not really happen.
09:38Not enough bite across the pitch in general, but lunging in near their own goal.
09:41And when you look back on situations like this, and like this, and like this, then, yeah, what else can
09:48you do as a defender if it gets to that point, but just dive in and hope for the best?
09:53Now, I would just like to talk about the human element I think is at play here.
10:00Which I know, like, it's very lame, and it's nebulous, and it's...
10:03And you can't put it on a nice graphic and quote-tweet it with a cry-laugh emoji, but I
10:09think it is more important to what is going on here than people seem to be realising.
10:15Like, it just, it feels to me like you can't move at the minute for pundits or experts all saying
10:22something like,
10:23Well, of course, you have to keep in mind what impact the death of Diogo Jota will be having on
10:29these players before not really keeping that in mind at all.
10:33Like, it's becoming this stock phrase everybody feels like they have to say without really, like, thinking about it.
10:41And I don't know you.
10:44Like, I don't know what you've been through in your life.
10:46But what I do know is that death, and specifically the death of somebody who was a major part of
10:52your life, will impact everybody very differently.
10:58I mean, like, for some people, it pushes you to do things, doesn't it?
11:02Like, to be ambitious, to achieve something, because that's, like, the only way you're going to find meaning in something
11:08that's happened.
11:09So you go and do it for them, or you just do it for yourself, because you feel like you
11:13have to do something.
11:14And it's this really weird experience where, like, as well as this, like, gaping void in the center of your
11:20chest,
11:21you also come out of it with an ambition and a determination you didn't really know you had.
11:26But other people are just different, aren't they?
11:29Like, someone being so visibly absent.
11:32Like, someone who was such a major part of your life, who interacted with every single day, just being gone
11:38and not coming back.
11:40Like, that drains the color out of that environment, doesn't it?
11:45Like, you might be okay, you might be doing fine, like, deep down, but all that stuff you had in
11:50common, that place you shared, is just, is different.
11:54And being there, living there, working there, whatever it is, suddenly that's just really, really hard.
12:01And so, when pundits or whoever are talking about the impact of this on the squad, the thing they're missing
12:07is that there is no singular impact.
12:10You can't use it to point at one specific thing that's going wrong with this team, because you've got dozens
12:17of players, of staff, of coaches, of everybody connected with this club,
12:21who are all processing this in just a completely different way.
12:25So, you're going to have some people at the club who are trying harder this year for their friend, and
12:31others who are just finding it really hard to even try at all.
12:36Like, this club was always going to be slightly unbalanced this season, because, like, grief and loss are not consistent
12:43experiences.
12:44Now, is that the reason Liverpool aren't scoring as many goals, or conceding so many chances, or not pressing with
12:51the same intensity?
12:52Like, no. Of course it isn't. It doesn't have that direct an impact on what you see on the pitch.
12:59Before, a lot of these players, for whom things are not going right, which then contributes to the overall performance
13:05of the team as a whole,
13:07some of that, yeah, that will go back to the fact that this season they're having to process something that
13:13nobody,
13:14least of all professional footballers, are ever really, like, that well emotionally equipped for.
13:20And on top of that, they're having to do it in the midst of a season that any sports psychologist
13:26will tell you is statistically the hardest one to navigate.
13:30Throughout the entire history of the Premier League, which, as you know, is when football started, only three managers have
13:38ever retained a title.
13:40Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, Pep Guardiola, which shows you just how hard that is.
13:46And also, in those 34 seasons of Premier League football, only seven times have the reigning champions improved their points
13:56tally from the season before,
13:58which is to really quickly match that for you, means that 80% of the time, the team that wins
14:04the league does not get better the year after, it gets worse.
14:07And that is because everybody is studying them, everybody wants to beat them, and science has told us for years
14:14and years and years
14:14that when you achieve something monumental, then regrouping and re-motivating yourself to do the exact same thing again is
14:24nigh on impossible.
14:25You cannot replicate the drive you had from before you ever did it.
14:30And so, honestly, I think when you factor all of that in, so much of what's going wrong with Liverpool
14:37this season
14:37is not explainable with a statistic or with a Subutio table, because it is just human nature.
14:44And admittedly, it's human nature lopped on top of a system that a lot of teams have figured out,
14:49implemented by players that don't really suit it that much anymore, but still human nature nonetheless.
14:55And there may well be, as we saw against Madrid, fixes for this on a game-by-game basis,
15:01but fixes as a whole, I'm not sure can actually happen for Liverpool this season.
15:08Like, I think what this group of players need, as much as, say, a new centre-back, is time.
15:14Time to bed in new players, time to find another way of playing, time for some of them to process
15:20what they've been through.
15:21And I just don't think you can rush a single one of them.
15:25But who knows? Maybe I'm deeping the whole thing too much.
15:28Maybe I'm projecting, who can possibly say.
15:31But if you're a Liverpool fan, please do give me your opinion.
15:33You're watching them more than I am in the comments down below.
15:37And, of course, don't forget to like the video and share it around and subscribe to the channel,
15:41if you haven't done already, because that does really help us out.
15:44You can get me across all the social medias, at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y.
15:47And the shirt, finally, is on sale, which I stress to mention to Liverpool fans,
15:52because fans of every other club have pointed out it looks loads like that silver and red away one you
15:57had that time,
15:58which, yeah, OK, that was accidental, but I can totally see that.
16:02Until next time, though, thank you very much for watching.
16:04Sorry if that was a bit heavy. It's been a weird year.
16:07I'll see you soon. Goodbye.
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