Matchday One: trends vs Southampton

In the past 20 seasons, Liverpool is 10-7-3 on opening day, 4-2-1 at home.  The Reds have scored 29 goals overall, but only 8 at home, allowed 20 overall, though only 5 as hosts.  At Anfield, they've won 1-0 three times & 2-1 once. Against opponents that finished lower on the Prem table than them the previous season, they are 10-2-7 overall and undefeated at home, 4-1-0.

Southampton is 6-9-5 in their past 20 opening day fixtures, 4-5-1 on the road. They've scored 20 goals, 10 on the road, allowed 30, 15 as visitors.  The Saints have either allowed multiple goals or shut-out their opponents away from St. Mary's, drawing 0-0 against West Brom in 2003 and beating Coventry 1-0 in 1999.  They've drawn 2-2 three times, twice against Derby County.  Overall, they are 2-3-6 against opponents that finished higher on the table the previous season, 1-1-3 away from home.

Liverpool is 13-6-7 head-to-head against Southampton overall in the past 20 seasons.  They've met just once before in week one with Liverpool winning 2-1 at St. Mary's in 1998.  Liverpool leads the series, 7-3-3 at Anfield, though the Saints won there last season, 1-0.  Jamie Carragher scored one of his four career league goals against Southampton in a 7-1 drubbing of the Saints in January 1999.

The previous season second-place finisher is 16-3-1 at home versus the previous season eighth-place finisher.  The only time the lower finishing club has beaten the higher is in 1997, when Wimbledon beat Newcastle, 3-1.  Only once in the past 20 seasons have the second place finisher from the previous season hosted the previous season eighth-place finisher in the opening week, in 2008 when Chelsea beat Pompey, 4-0.

The demise of Southampton has been well over-exaggerated, they have added Dušan Tadić, who I've written about before, and Graziano Pellè, who finished second in goals scored in the Eredivisie last season.  They are probably upgrades of Lallana and Lambert and Lovren's spot will most likely be filled by Maya Yoshida or Jos Hooiveld.  Even losing Schneiderlin, if it happens, won't be that much of a loss with James Ward-Prose getting more pitch time.  As long as they have Fonte, Davis, Wanyama, Cork, and Ward-Prowse, they are going to be hard to score against, and Gaston Ramirez, who was more efficient than Lallana last year, will finally get the chance to prove his worth.

Jordan Henderson, the would-be King

Jordan Henderson has come a long way since his Sunderland days.  When Dalglish bought him in June of 2011 for a staggering £16m, I was more than a bit skeptical.  Paying that much for a relatively unproven soon-to-be 21-year-old, was quite the risk.  Henderson displayed flashes of brilliance here and there, but was wholly inconsistent, not uncommon for a player his age.  Fortunately he has proven to be a skilled, versatile midfielder, who can and is willing to do what is ever needed to make Liverpool a better side.

year	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14
age	20	21	22	23	24
app (sub)	23(10)	37	31(6)	16(14)	35
mins	2187	3210	2658	1535	3129
p90	24.3	35.7	29.5	17.1	34.8
goals	1	3	2	5	4
assists	5	4	1	4	7
chances	28	45	40	33	62
npg90	0.04	0.08	0.07	0.29	0.11
gcp90	0.25	0.20	0.10	0.29	0.32
ccp90	1.15	1.26	1.36	1.90	1.78
ap90	0.21	0.11	0.03	0.23	0.20
ccv	18.3	8.7	2.2	12.1	11.2
pass %	68.4	81.2	83.9	84.5	87.1
bp %	-	-	-	43.4	41.2
sacc %	0.25	0.29	0.35	0.33	0.15
shot %	0.03	0.07	0.05	0.15	0.12
TTI90	15.9	11.1	11.1	11.5	9.7

His progression over the past five years has been impressive to say the least, especially his passing.  What's most impressive though, is how valuable he has become on defence.  Last season, he became our most valuable midfielder when it comes to preventing goals.  His goals on pitch per 90 average was 1.18, considerably better than Gerrard (1.37), Lucas (1.28), or Allen (1.31).

To see how truly far Henderson has come I wanted to compare his stats from last season with his contemporaries, players who are of similar age (23-25) and play a similar position.  I went through each squad and found all the players that fit the criteria, they are Joe Allen, Nemanja Matic, Morgan Schneiderlin, Ashley Westwood, Fabian Delph, Sandro, Steven N'Zonzi, Ki Sung-Yeong, Victor Wanyama, Jake Livermore, and Vurnon Anita.  The stat comparison table is below.

The top 5 overall ranking:

1. Jordan Henderson                 4.73

2. Morgan Schneiderlin              5.00

3. Nemanja Matic                     5.33

4. Ashley Westwood                 5.67

5. Fabian Delph                        5.87

Not only was he top overall, Henderson was in the top five in eleven of the fifteen categories.  Among his peers, he is already king and if he continues his current progression, who knows how good he could become.

	Henderson	Matic	Schneiderlin	Westwood	Delph	Sandro
age	24	25	24	24	24	25
app(sub)	35	15(2)	31(2)	35	33(1)	10(7)
mins	3129	1365	2765	3077	3004	828
p90	34.8	15.2	30.7	34.2	33.4	9.2
goals	4	0	2	3	3	1
assists	7	4	1	2	2	0
chances	62	23	30	63	28	7
npg90	0.11	0	0.07	0.12	0.09	0.11
gcp90	0.32	0.26	0.1	0.15	0.15	0.11
ccp90	1.78	1.51	0.98	1.84	0.83	0.76
ap90	0.20	0.26	0.03	0.06	0.06	0
ccv	11.2	17.2	3.1	3.2	7.2	0
pass %	87.1	84.8	89.3	82.9	83.7	84.4
bp %	41.2	31	35.6	28.3	38.3	29.6
sacc %	32.7	15.3	25.8	25	25	23.5
shot %	8.2	0	6.5	10.7	8.3	5.9
TTI90	9.7	12.5	9.3	9.6	10.5	10.8
intp90	1	2	2.2	1.4	1.7	3.3
clrp90	2	4	1.5	0.9	1.5	2.4
tp90	2.4	3.7	3.7	1.6	3	2.6
ts%	42.8	41.5	47.8	47.6	49.4	42.6
gap90	0.86	0.46	1.14	1.64	1.62	1.63

	N'Zonzi	Sung-Yeong	Wanyama	Livermore	Anita	Allen
age	25	25	23	24	25	24
app (sub)	34(2)	25(2)	19(4)	34(2)	28(6)	15(9)
mins	3041	2196	1659	3054	2457	1443
p90	33.8	24.4	18.4	33.9	27.3	16
goals	2	3	0	3	1	1
assists	1	1	0	4	1	0
chances	32	28	7	34	38	18
npg90	0.06	0.08	0	0.09	0.04	0.06
gcp90	0.09	0.16	0	0.21	0.07	0.06
ccp90	0.95	1.15	0.38	1	1.39	1.13
ap90	0.03	0.04	0	0.12	0.04	0
ccv	3.2	3.6	0	11.8	2.9	0
pass %	87.2	90.7	84.3	83	83.8	86.7
bp %	36.8	42.1	38.9	38.9	30.7	38
sacc %	19.4	35	12.5	17.9	19	42.1
shot %	6.5	7.5	0	7.7	4.8	5.3
TTI90	10.7	7.2	12.6	11.7	10.2	9.8
intp90	1	0.9	1.8	1.5	1.6	1.6
clrp90	0.8	0.9	2.8	0.8	1	1.3
tp90	1.8	1.7	3.5	2	1.8	4.2
ts%	47.6	55.6	48.2	45.8	45	56
gap90	1.33	1.72	0.76	1.36	1.65	1.31

Forget Lovren, we've got Kevin Stewart now

It is baffling that the signing of Kevin Stewart is deemed 'news'.  What is more pathetic though is when a blog sensationalizes and exaggerates to trick people into visiting their site by calling Stewart a 'Prem' defender.  He is 20-years-old and has played a grand total of zero Prem minutes.  Unless Rodgers thinks he'll be some sort of late bloomer, what's the point?  Is Ilori and/or Coates, as long as the latter is here, going to get a chance?  We need a player who is going to challenge for a starting spot and Stewart isn't that.

Dejan Lovren, on the other hand, could. The 25-year-old Southampton and Serbian international anchored a very solid Saints defense last season.  In fact, in my overall defense ranking table, the South Coast side finished third, only a point from being tied top with Chelsea and Crystal Palace.  As I have said, I don't think individual defensive stats hold much water, but I do think in the very least, you can find fault and strength. Here are Lovren's stats from last season along with those of Sakho, Skrtel, Agger, and Old Man Toure.

	Lovren	Sakho	Skrtel	Agger	Toure
age	25	24	29	29	34
app(subs)	31	18(1)	36	16(4)	15(5)
mins	2787	1478	3221	1421	1443
goals	2	1	7	2	0
assist	1	0	1	1	2
chances	4	2	7	2	7
npgp90	0.07	0.06	0.2	0.13	0
gcp90	0.1	0.06	0.22	0.19	0.13
ccp90	0.13	0.12	0.2	0.13	0.44
ap90	0.03	0	0.03	0.06	0.13
ccv	0.23	0	0.15	0.46	0.3
pass%	82	92.5	90.8	89.1	86.4
bp%	21.5	22.6	23.7	18.7	20.5
sacc%	15.2	10	53.3	42.8	14.3
shot%	9	10	46.7	28.6	0
tp90	2	1.6	1.4	1.7	2.1
tack %	57.8	71.4	50	55.6	65.1
intp90	2.7	1.6	1.7	1.3	0.9
clrp90	7.7	8.3	11.5	7.2	9.2
dribpp90	0.5	0.3	0.4	0.3	0.4
bsp90	0.3	0.4	1.1	0.5	0.8
adwp90	3.3	2.9	3.6	2.8	2.7
adwon%	61.2	56	70.1	65.2	50.6
TTI90	10.4	5.6	5.2	5	5.8

So what does Lovren do well? Interceptions and aerial duels certainly stand out.  Though it's kind of disconcerting that he's easily taken off the dribble more than the other four, especially Toure.  It questions his pace and quickness.  He also turns over the ball significantly more and he had less touches than Skrtel, so the 'Suarez' factor does not come into play.

Is he worth the reported £20m that it may cost to bring him in? Absolutely not.  If he alone was the reason the Saints defense was so good, yes, but they have/had Schneiderlin, Wanyama, Fonte, Clyne, and Shaw.  None of those five, save Shaw, is worth that much, and that's only because Shaw is 19.  I'd rather us just try and sigh Steven Caulker.