Liverpool vs Man City: A look at the stats

Let's take a look at some key statistics from last season:

(league rank in parenthesis)             LFC                       MCFC
overall possession %                     55.8 (5)                   57.6 (2)
pass success %                             84.5 (4)                   86.1 (1)
chances created                             488 (3)                    533 (1)
shots conceded pg                        12.8 (8)                     9.5 (1)
shots OT pg                                   6.8 (1)                     6.3 (2)
fouled pg                                      10.8 (6)                     8.9 (20)
offsides pg                                     2.1 (9)                     1.6 (19)
open play goals                              55 (3)                       66 (1)
counter attack goals                         9 (1)                        5 (2)
set piece goals                                26 (1)                      20 (2)
crosses pg                                      17 (20)                    23 (6)
through ball pg                                5 (1)                         3 (4)
long balls pg                                   56 (18)                    55 (20)
short passes pg                              469 (4)                    502 (3)
possession in own half %                 29 (13)                    23 (1)
possession in opp half %                 28 (11)                    31 (1)

Clearly some of these are obvious: you keep the ball more (possession %), you make better decisions on the ball (pass success %), you create more chances, you don't allow your opponent many chances, and you keep the ball out of your own half, you've got a better chance to win more games.

What surprised me the most was LFC's attack efficiency, they scored more with less opportunity.  They had a goal per chance opportunity of 4.83 compared to Man City at 5.22.  Against the run of play which factors in possession pct per match, Liverpool is even more impressive since their possession pct was not as high (8.66 compared to 9.06).

Which leaves the white elephant in the room, defense.  Liverpool was not bad defensively, they were just merely average while Man City was very good (though not excellent).  The problem in statistically analyzing defensive performance is that it is nearly impossible to quantify things such as 'forced back pass' or 'passing lane reduction'.  These things limit opportunities of an opponent to score, but unless you watch every match and keep statistics yourself, which neither I nor no one I know has the time to do so, it's just not going to happen.  Plus there are judgement calls.

One thing I find interesting is how little opponent passing pct really matters, even in the attacking third.  According to StatsBomb, through April 21st, Man City was allowing a pass success rate of 81.5% overall and 68.2% in the final third, while LFC were superior in both at 79.2% and 66.7%.  The problem being that direction of pass is not being considered, Man City may be forcing their opponents to make back and horizontal passes by cutting off passing lanes/opportunities.

The bottom line is Man City were the best at preventing opponents from scoring chances, which unfortunately we can only validate by shots conceded per match, and though Liverpool were more efficient offensively, they created less chances for themselves overall (even though it lead to just one more goal overall).

Some observations that I think separated the two sides are lack of discipline by Liverpool defenders, especially Skrtel and Sakho, and not having a true defensive midfielder on the pitch a lot of the time. It also doesn't help that MCFC just has better defensive midfielders in Fernandinho and Javi Garcia with Yaya Toure occasionally deputized.  One of these problems may have been resolved with the addition of Emre Can, but he is closer to a box-to-box than a defensive midfielder and the lack of discipline has to be addressed by the coaching staff or else look for those who will listen.