For the past few days I've been mulling over data from the obscure to the obvious for a number of reasons. I really want to get an idea of the contributions each player makes to the whole, who's the most efficient at which position, and most specifically, what players work best with one another. It also reveals some trends that are more than likely coincidental, but interesting nonetheless. Here's five of them:
1. youth + height = win
Though it rarely happens, when Rafa puts out a side that is younger yet taller than the opposition, we win. Four times so far this season it's occurred: Toulouse (2nd leg), Derby County, Cardiff City, and Fulham. Of course this means little considering the opponent and the fact that they were all played at Anfield.
2. Goals are scarce at Anfield?
If you take away Toulouse, Derby, and Besitkas, we've only scored 8 goals in 7 matches at home this season. Not that we've been much better on the road. Take away the Reading match and we've only managed 10 goals in 9 matches away from Anfield.
3. Our most dominating performance of the season was a scoreless draw at home
You read that right, our most dominating performance was the 0-0 draw against Birmingham at Anfield. In that match we had our highest possession percentage at 71.5%, and both our second highest pass success rate (81.9%) and territorial advantage (56.8%). We also had our most corners won at 11. So why didn't we win nor score? Our shooting was piss poor. We had 4 shots on goal the entire match, 3 right in front of the net.
4. Statistically our worst performance was a draw on the road
You know, I didn't think we played that bad at Porto, but the numbers tell a whole different story. In fact, we had no right even taking a point. How bad were we? Try one shot on goal, a single corner kick won, a possession percentage of 43.5%, and a passing rate of 64.2%. All four of those stats were season lows. Pennant's red card didn't help either. The amazing part is that Porto needed a penalty just to get the draw.
5. The Riise factor
This is one of those odd stats where there's much more at play than just one simple movement, but it is sort of eye-opening. In the 5 matches that John Arne Riise has had to move to left-back due to substitution reasons, we've scored 8 goals... in 130 minutes. If Rafa could somehow tap into this trend, we could average more than three goals a match, rather than 2 as we do now. Of course, there are two other factors that play into this that aren't present at the beginning or during an entire match. First, fresh players are brought in to revitalize the attack and second, the opposition has tired out a bit.
These are just some odd bits I've come across so far and I have a ton of more work to do, but I hope to have a better feel for our side when it's all said and done. Expect more interesting tidbits in the near future. Cheers.
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