Liverpool 0, Hull City 0: Five things learnt

1. Joe Allen isn't championship material.
Well, he would be great in the Championship, but Liverpool will never win anything starting him.  He's good for a mid-table club, but if we are going to be serious contenders, we need players who can take us to that level.  I like Joe Allen and think he's about as good as he can be, but it still isn't good enough.  Seriously, would he be anything but a reserve at Chelsea or Man City?

2. We can play defense.
Hull is not a top five side, but they are far from the relegation discussion.  They are capable of scoring goals, but today, even with Ben Harfa starting they were hardly a threat.  I just hope this positive, one of the few we can take from the match, is a trend for the future.  Still, I think Skrtel and Lovren went too far forward at times and that will hurt us against better clubs.

3. Balotelli is useless as the lone striker/forward.
The game tilted completely in Liverpool's favor once Lambert came on.  Prior to that, Sterling and Balo tried to team up, but it just wasn't working as Sterling wants to stay on the flanks and it appears to confuse the Italian.  Lambert may be the perfect companion for Balo as his passing ability gives Super Mario chance after chance.  The problem is the 32-year-old lacks the ability to be effective more than 30 minutes on the pitch so using him as a 60 minute sub is our best bet, unfortunately that means an hour of watching Balotelli play defence.

4. Coutinho is a highly effective second half sub.
He was gangbusters when he came on today and was the major catalyst in giving us a chance to win.  If only Balotelli would have converted that last second goal...

5. Manquillo is better than Glen Johnson.
If you didn't know that by now, then give it up.  Johnson turns over the ball consistently and can't play defence while Manquillo is a positive force on both sides of the ball.  At least when the Spaniard makes mistakes we can cough it up to youth, Glen Johnson is just rubbish.  Sell him in the transfer window, Rodgers... if anyone will take him.

The return of Robo-Skrtel

Liverpool 2, Southampton 1: The match in stats
- Martin Skrtel had 20 clearances.  He led Liverpool and the league last season with 11.5 per 90 minutes and is well on his way to doing so again this season.  Lovren was second with 11 and Manquillo was third with 5.

- Skrtel also led the side in touches with 111, Manquillo was second with 109, and Lovren third with 86.

- Skrtel won the most aerial duels as well with 7 while Lovren was second with 6.

- Lovren led all players with an absolutely ridiculous passing rate of 96%, Skrtel was 2nd at 91%, and Gerrard third at 89%.

- Manquillo led the side with 6 tackles, Jordan Henderson was 2nd with 3.

- Gerrard completed 10 of 13 of long balls.  He lead all outfield Prem players last year with 257.

- Daniel Sturridge attempted 20 passes the entire match, Joe Allen attempted that many in 31 minutes.  Sturridge, a career 80% passer, completed 17 while Allen, a career 90% passer, completed 16.

- Raheem Sterling dribbled past 5 opponents, but was dispossessed 6 times.

-Rickie Lambert had more tackles, one, than Glen Johnson and Lucas Leiva combined.

- Every starter had at least one interception except Sturridge.  Lovren and Manquillo led the team with 4 a piece.

- No Liverpool player committed more than a single foul.  Thank you, Clattenburger.

- One of Glenn Johnson's shots landed in a rubbish bin, the other knocked an ice cream cone out of a six-year-old girl's hand.

- Lucas had a shot on target, created a chance, and dribbled past an opponent.  Either he passed a few bills to the statistician before the match or it's his Uncle Joenihno recording the numbers.

- The only other player to do as Lucas did above was Raheem Sterling, he had 3 shots on target and 2 key passes though.

Liverpool 2, Man City 2: A 'Sterling' performance

It is only the preseason, but that second half was some entertaining football.  I had to go and praise Coates in the first half, only to have him let me down in the second.  The Uruguayan defender couldn't really do much more save 'take out' Jovetic on the first goal and risk penalty.  Had Gerrard not deflected the ball into the Montenegrin's grasp, Mignolet would have probably scooped up the attempt.  It did slightly expose what became very apparent on the second goal, Coates needs to get stronger.  If he allows forwards to out-muscle him like the Man City forward did on his second score, he'll never make it in the Premiership.

As for the rest of the side, Sterling was the absolute game-changer.  If there ever was a sign of his world class potential, it was his very apparent ability to make his teammates look so much better, especially Henderson, who was having a rubbish bin match before our Raheem came on.  Not to take anything away from Henderson's brilliant finish, but it was Sterling's pass to Sturridge that set up the goal.  Beginning with an excellent set-up for Jack Robinson, which should have produced a better attempt on goal, Sterling provided chance after chance, terrorizing Man City down the left side of the pitch.

Sterling allowed a change in style of play, from a long-ball, centralized approach in the first half, to a possession-based, bring the ball up the flanks in the second.  Well, I should say bring it up the left flank that is, hardly anybody was on the right save Glen Johnson, who did himself no favors when it comes to his critics.  Even when he made a positive contribution, which was rare in itself, he would sure enough mangle it.

Lucas and Can were bright spots as well.  Lucas, in his cameo appearance, neutralized Touré,  provided the brilliant assist to Sterling on the equalizer, and scored the winning penalty.  He provided a sense of 'calm' the team needed to get back into the match.  Can was simply a beast, roaming around central midfield causing havoc for City and making smart possession-based passes.  His style of play is very similar to the box-to-box midfielder prototype that is Yaya Touré, if he can reach those heights, we'll have many years of success to come.

By the way, when did Micah Richards become such a school girl princess?  Before the match, I would have gladly had him come to Liverpool, but his wincing and whining, particularly after being man-handled by Can, has provided second thoughts.  He did more complaining than positive contributing, which is something we don't need.

Also what was going on with the pitch?  I realize it was played on a baseball field, but had this match been scheduled for the Prem or European football, it would have probably been abandoned due to horrendous conditions.  I don't know if the grass was too long or just the wrong kind, but especially in the first half, proper ball movement took an extra effort, which could have lead to a muscle strain or hamstring pull.  The stability in the 'infield' area was also questionable with a few players slipping, maybe that's why Liverpool avoided that side of the pitch in the second half.

Ultimately, this was a meaningless preseason match, despite what Guinness and Fox wants us to believe.  If Sterling can perform this well through-out the season, we'll be contenders until the end.  If Coates can play like he did in the first half, we have another option at centre back.  One thing I'm certain of, as they have both shown it the last two seasons, Henderson and Allen can play much better than they did, but Lambert and Sturridge will have to produce goals for us to have a chance at the title.

Steven Gerrard, King of the APEs

Attacking Possession Efficiency that is.  I haven't been posting much lately because I've been working on a lot of stats projects.  One of these is APE.  APE measures how efficient a player is in possession.  It takes in account all positive results from possession and gives relative value to these results and then divides this number by total individual possessions.  A goal is given four times the value of a completed pass and shot on goal, while an assist is given double value to a chance created.  Here is Liverpool's top ten APE from last season (the team APE was 0.43563):

Gerrard	0.46478
Henderson	0.46115
Skrtel	0.45314
Coutinho	0.45302
Suarez	0.45268
Johnson	0.44870
Lucas	0.44444
Sterling	0.43388
Sakho	0.42635
Sturridge	0.42570

Skrtel was more efficient than Suarez? Yes, because he did more with less possession and turned over the ball much less, which is essentially what this stat measures.

I also created a Positive Possession Result Quality, which gives value to the quality of positive result compared to overall 'stripped-down' results. The top ten PPRQ for Liverpool last year (the team average was 0.52788):

Suarez	0.62686
Sturridge	0.60947
Sterling	0.56348
Coutinho	0.54459
Gerrard	0.53748
Henderson	0.52640
Allen	0.51978
Johnson	0.51628
Flanagan	0.51585
Skrtel	0.51147

This basically means that Suarez produced a higher quality result (goal or assist) 62.686% of the time, that shouldn't be much a surprise.  

The players who must prove their worth this season

Mignolet & Reina?
No one seems sure as to whether Rodgers will give Reina a chance to compete for the starting job this season or is just waiting for and/or weighing the best offer for the soon-to-be 32-year-old.  The Spanish International made the trip across the pond as part of the squad for the US tour, but so did Borini.  I think he should be able to stay and fight for the top spot, there's nothing more healthy than a little competition and after last year, Mignolet should know his spot is far from safe.

The 26-year-old Belgian was fifth worst in giving up 50 goals last season and his 93% cross claim percentage was 28th in the league.  The demeanor of Mignolet was what worried me most, he didn't seem too concerned with taking control on defence and a seeming lack of communication between him and his defenders cost us a few goals last year, possibly the league as well.  Personally, if he doesn't show the form that lead us to buy him for £9m from Sunderland last summer, I say start looking for his replacement.

Sakho
The more and more I looked into Sakho's performance last season, the more discouraged I became.  Whenever he was on the pitch, our defence was as fragile as a United fan's confidence, one remote slight and it would collapse.  The biggest piece of the puzzle is what the 24-year-old French centre back did to warrant a -0.52 goals on pitch difference, by far the worst among club regulars.  His statistical output otherwise was good to excellent (92.5% passing success rate), which leaves unquantifiable solutions such as positioning and communication.  No matter what, if he continues the path he is on, which may have been due to game-style adjustment, he shouldn't be in a Liverpool kit by the end of next summer.

Martin Kelly & Glen Johnson
Oh Martin Kelly, too many injuries, too little time, what could have been? And now the clock nears the stroke of your LFC career end.  It's too bad the freshly-turned 24-year-old has not been able to put together a decent amount of appearances since his first team debut in 2009.  He needs a huge season to justify him staying even though his contract is until summer 2017.  I've always thought he had the talent, maybe he simply lacks the physicality to survive English top flight football.

Despite reports of his imminent demise, Glen Johnson did the same things at the same rate he's been doing for the past four years or so.  He set a career high in successful pass percentage at 84.1%, he still posted a 1.11 chance created per 90, and was only dribbled past by 0.82 per 90, his career average is 0.73.  We'll probably never see the kind of season he had when he was 25, but it's a contract season for the soon-to-be 30-year-old, so we should him at his possible best.

Some other players come to mind, but the aforementioned are the most crucial.  If Jose Enrique returns to his form of the previous year and avoids injury, he'll be fine.  Joe Allen will probably stay as long as he wants to be a bit part of a much bigger picture, ditto for Lucas, though the Brazilian, if he is still around come September, will certainly see more pitch time than the Welshman.  It should be business as usual for all else.

Jay Rodriguez for £19m?! I must be taking crazy pills.

Jay Rodriguez isn't worth £1.9m, yet alone 19! That is absurd.  There just can't be any truth to Rodgers being interested in him.  If so, somebody needs to set his head right, because that's certifiable. Are these stats worthy of a £19m attacking midfielder/winger/forward?

Southampton 2013-14

npgp90	gcp90	ccp90	ap90	ccv
0.53	0.63	0.7	0.11	14.3
pass%	bp%	sacc%	shot%	TTI90
76.6	49	31.7	14.9	12.9
gap90	gsp90	gop90	tgop	gopd90
1.37	1.51	0.14	0.21	-0.07

Southampton 2012-13

npgp90	gcp90	ccp90	ap90	ccv
0.25	0.45	0.74	0.21	27.8
pass%	bp%	sacc%	shot%	TTI90
73.8	-	36	6.7	14.4
gap90	gsp90	gop90	tgop	gopd90
1.61	1.2	-0.41	-0.29	0.12

I'll save you the trouble and say 'Hell no!' Rodriguez is not good enough to wear the Liverpool shirt.  It's bad enough we grossly overpaid for his former teammate, but he shouldn't even be in the picture.  Whomever says we should buy him, should be committed, immediately.

Not a single stat above could be deemed 'outstanding'.  He does have great chances created value numbers, but that's mainly due to lack of created chances more than anything.  He had a total of 38 for the past two seasons combined.  For perspective, Glen Johnson had 74 over the same span.

Rodriguez is clearly poor on the ball.  His turnover rate and passing percentages are dismal.  He did see slight improvement from one season to the next, but he'll be 25 by the end of the month.  His performance curve can't go too much higher.

Seriously, Rodgers, Rodriguez? I'm hoping he was mis-heard and really said Ricardo Rodriguez.  If not, we need to find where the real Rodgers is being held and get rid of his reptilian humanoid doppelganger sent by Malcolm Glazer from his invisible spaceship.  This hyperreality is making me lose my mind.

Should Andre Wisdom be loaned to West Brom?

Andre Wisdom, like Suso, is a well-liked player that I think all Liverpool fans want to pan out, play the next 10 or so years in a LFC shirt, and retire a legend.  He's a beast and even though he may not have the best judgement behind the wheel, on the pitch he's already a coveted commodity.  His versatility, athletic ability, and skill make the sky the limit for the 21-year-old Leeds native. His loan to Derby last season did nothing but prove how promising a prospect he is, here are his stats from that time:

npgp90	gcp90	ccp90	ap90	ccv
0	0.09	0.64	0.09	14.3
pass%	bp%	sacc%	shot%	TTI90
82.9	36.5	23.1	0	10.4
gap90	gsp90	gop90	tgop	gopd
1.04	1.98	0.94	0.7	0.24
tp90	tack%	intp90	clrp90
1.56	54.5	0.73	3.35
dribpp90	bsp90	adwp90	adw%
0.34	0.52	1.04	60.7

The most impressive stat is in the 34 matches since he joined Derby, they garnered 73 points, and the 12 previous they only managed 12.  Without Wisdom, I highly doubt they would have even made the Championship playoff.

I honestly think we should keep Wisdom and make him the starter.  I understand Rodgers' thinking here, but I don't think hanging on to Johnson for another season when he still has sell value is a good plan.  Johnson will be 30 come August and I doubt he has but a few years left in competitive top flight football.  Wisdom and even Martin Kelly deserve their shot and bringing in another right back is just a waste of money.

Coutinho, Sterling, & Agger all had higher gopds than Suarez last year

The winner of 'goals on pitch difference' for Liverpool last season was Coutinho with Sterling and Agger coming up 2nd and 3rd respectively.  Similar to +/- that is used in basketball, gopd measures the amount of goals a team scored against amount allowed while that player is on the pitch.  Here are the results for relevant LFC players from last season:

	mins	pp90	ga	gap90	gs	gsp90	diff
Coutinho	2323	25.8	37	1.43	78	3.02	1.59
Sterling	2220	24.7	31	1.26	69	2.80	1.54
Agger	1421	15.8	18	1.14	42	2.66	1.52
Suarez	2962	32.9	47	1.43	96	2.92	1.49
Sturridge	2267	25.2	31	1.23	68	2.70	1.47
Johnson	2515	27.9	38	1.36	79	2.83	1.47
Henderson	3129	34.8	42	1.21	93	2.67	1.47
Allen	1443	16.0	21	1.31	44	2.75	1.44
Skrtel	3221	35.8	50	1.40	99	2.77	1.37
Gerrard	2895	32.2	44	1.37	86	2.67	1.30
Flanagan	1890	21.0	38	1.81	63	3.00	1.19
Lucas	1896	21.1	27	1.28	49	2.32	1.04
Toure	1443	16.0	20	1.25	36	2.25	1.00
Sakho	1478	16.4	25	1.52	38	2.32	0.79

The gopd average for Liverpool was 1.33 per match, which does not bode well for Gerrard and anyone else below him on the table.  Flanagan is particularly dreadful being his 3 goal scored per 90 is second highest, but his 1.81 goals allowed is worst.  I'm at a loss for words when it comes to Sakho, maybe he just isn't that good, and if you would have asked me last week if selling Lucas was a good idea, I would have said absolutely not, but now I'm beginning to wonder if he's no longer of much value.

I'm not surprised by any of the players in the top five except for maybe Agger, who we should truly not sell, but Johnson at sixth is perplexing.  I figured he'd be much worse.  Maybe we should hold on to him for a little bit longer.

By the way, of all players who played at least 1000 league minutes last season, Aly Cissokho had the highest goal scored per 90 at 3.05 and highest gopd at 1.73. Go figure.

Gerrard & Sturridge are more important than Suarez

Again and again I'm trying to convince myself that the loss of Suarez won't be that great, well, this may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.  I went through each match last year and broke down goal importance according to whether a point was salvaged or gained (crucial goal) or gave us an advantage (important goal).  I did the same for assists as well.  Then I applied a points system: 3 points for crucial goal or assist and 1 point for important goal or assist.  Here are the results:

	crucial goal	imp goal	crucial asst	imp assist	value
Gerrard	5	4	4	4	35
Sturridge	7	6	1	2	32
Suarez	0	11	1	4	18
Coutinho	2	1	0	2	9
Agger	1	1	1	1	8
Henderson	1	0	0	3	6
Enrique	0	0	1	1	4
Sterling	0	2	0	2	4
Aspas	0	0	1	0	3
Skrtel	0	3	0	0	3
Toure	0	0	0	1	1
Sakho	0	1	0	0	1
Johnson	0	0	0	1	1
Allen	0	1	0	0	1

Not a single goal and only one assist from Suarez was 'crucial' to our title chase last year.  He did score 11 'important' goals though, unfortunately that also means he essentially scored 20 'meaningless' goals or goals that wouldn't have mattered had he scored them or not.

We will be fine if Suarez leaves as long as we improve defensively.  Yes, he's fun to watch and I wish he would play the rest of his days in a Liverpool shirt, but in the end, we go on.

Agger was our best defender last season, Sakho was worst

Last season Brendan Rodgers utlilized 16 different line-ups on the back line.  I remember back in the day when Benitez used to change the line-up that often, he was ridiculed as a 'tinkerer'.  The truth is, he was ahead of his time and most successful managers started to do the same including Mourinho and Ferguson. Nowadays it's the status quo for clubs involved in multiple competitions, especially Europe (Sorry Man U).

 Rodgers, though, had a ton of injury issues to deal with last season.  Sakho, Enrique, Johnson, Toure, and Agger all had injury spells, some multiple.  Here are those line-ups along with their stats:

				M	GA	GAPM	CS
Johnson	Toure	Agger	Enrique	2	0	0.00	2
Johnson	Skrtel	Agger	Enrique	1	0	0.00	1
Johnson	Skrtel	Agger	Cissohko	2	0	0.00	2
Johnson	Skrtel	Sakho	Flanagan	3	2	0.67	1
Toure	Skrtel	Agger	Sakho	1	1	1.00	0
Flanagan	Skrtel	Toure	Cissohko	4	4	1.00	1
Johnson	Skrtel	Agger	Flanagan	5	5	1.00	2
Toure	Skrtel	Sakho		5	7	1.40	0
Flanagan	Skrtel	Agger	Johnson	2	3	1.50	1
Wisdom	Skrtel	Sakho	Enrique	1	2	2.00	0
Johnson	Skrtel	Agger	Flanagan	2	4	2.00	0
Johnson	Skrtel	Sakho	Cissohko	1	2	2.00	0
Johnson	Skrtel	Sakho	Agger	1	2	2.00	0
Johnson	Skrtel	Sakho	Flanagan	5	10	2.00	0
Johnson	Skrtel	Toure	Cissohko	2	5	2.50	0
Johnson	Skrtel	Toure	Flanagan	1	3	3.00	0

Those are sorted by goals allowed per match and if we break it down per player:

	ms	ga	gapm	cs	cs%
Agger	16	15	0.94	8	0.50
Cissohko	9	11	1.22	3	0.33
Johnson	27	36	1.33	9	0.33
Toure	15	20	1.33	3	0.20
Skrtel	36	50	1.39	8	0.22
Flanagan	22	31	1.41	5	0.23
Sakho	17	26	1.53	1	0.06

It's pretty clear our most valuable player on the back line is Agger.  It's not even close.  In fact, we only had 2 clean sheets without him.  What's disappointing is Sakho appears to be the biggest liability.  One clean sheet in 17 starts and the highest goal allowed per match average at 1.53.

I'm not sure what Rodgers plans on doing since it was pretty clear by the end of last season that Skrtel and Sakho were his first choice centre backs.  If they continue last year's form, that's not acceptable.  Agger is our best defensive back and I don't know what else proof the gaffer needs.  We will not win the league next year unless we shore up our defense, no matter what hard decisions need to be made.  I like Sakho, but if that means sitting him, so be it.