Analytics Report: Premier League Match Of The Week – Matchday 11 – Liverpool vs Manchester City

Fans witnessed one of the most surprising results this season as Liverpool defeated Pep Guardiola’s so-called unstoppable Manchester City side. The win for Liverpool was not as surprising as the fact that they managed to keep a clean sheet against arguably the best striker in the world right now.

Liverpool went back to basics and played a mid-block in a 4-4-1-1 shape, with Salah playing up top on his own. They did concede first, but the goal was disallowed after an on-field review as Haaland fouled Fabinho in the build-up to that goal.

Mohamed Salah then scored a goal in a brilliant counter-attack started by Alisson. The Brazilian’s excellent quick thinking and the pass to Salah, who used his body smartly to deceive Cancelo; and the Portuguese defender handled the situation terribly as the last man. Salah was then one-on-one against Ederson, and having already missed a similar chance a few minutes before that, the Egyptian’s finish was perfect this time around.

City kept pushing, but Liverpool’s defence was rock-solid with Van Dijk at the heart of it. Gomez, alongside him and Milner on the right, both performed remarkably as Foden and Haaland were kept quiet throughout the game.

In the chart below, we have the analytics data from the game.

Predictably, Manchester City dominated the possession with 63% in their favour, while Liverpool had the remaining 37%. However, Manchester City’s use of the amount of possession they had was underwhelming as they hardly created any major chance against Liverpool. Liverpool’s xG was double City’s as the Reds recorded an xG of 2.0 to City’s 1.0. This was one of the few games where City underperformed on their xG.

Despite the difference in the sides’ xG, City had more shots (16) and more on target as well (6), while Liverpool had 3 of their 13 shots on target. City also recorded 25 shot-creating actions to Liverpool’s SCA of 16.

Liverpool were also inferior to City in pass completion rate as the Reds completed 75.1% of their passes while City completed 85.6%. The away side also registered a much higher number of progressive passes than their opponents, with City recording 53 progressive passes to Liverpool’s 26. The difference was rather apparent in key passes, with Liverpool only recording 8 to City’s imposing 45.

However, out-of-possession is where Liverpool were exceptional and more effective than City. Liverpool completed 20 tackles to City’s 18 while completing 21 interceptions to City’s 7, 14 more than their opponents. Klopp’s side also recorded more recoveries – 105, while City were not too behind recording 100.

Pep Guardiola’s Comments After The Game At Anfield

In his post-match interview, Pep Guardiola told Sky Sports, “The referee came to the coaches and said, ‘play on, play on’. There were a million fouls. But after we scored a goal, he decided it is not play on. This is Anfield.”

“We had [enough] chances. We had some fantastic chances.”

“All the game we were brave, we played the game we should play and I don’t have any complaints or regrets over how we did it.”

“We had chances but not enough to do it. We made a good process to not allow them transitions. In general the back three was brilliant.”