I was somewhat surprised to find that it is actually our defenders who are responsible for our lack of goals this season!
OK so that and the title of this thread are throw away lines to get your attention, but statistically it is correct if you compare us against Chelsea using Opta stats.
I analysed the stats of the top six teams as the league stands today, ie Us, Chelsea, Man U, Spurs, Blackburn and Arsenal.
Surprisingly, our strikers actually out perform Crespo and Drogba if you calculate their goals as a percentage of total goals.
This is how the "Goals scored by who" summary appears now:
..................Strikers.....Midfield......Defenders...O/G...Total goals
Liverpool........34.38%......59.38%.......3.13%.....3.13%.....32
Chelsea..........30.77%......57.69%.......9.62%.....1.92%.....52
Just a pause here to point out that Liverpool and Chelsea are ranked 1st and 2nd respectively in both 'Possession held' and 'shots per game' at the moment. It is interesting to see therefore that both our midfield and striking departments are contributing a higher proportion of total goals that the equivalent Chelsea players. Our defenders however are lagging behind pointing to the 'set piece' area of our game perhaps?
Moving on to the teams below us and it is evident that their midfield sections are much less productive and/or their strikers bear much more responsibility...
..................Strikers.....Midfield......Defenders...O/G...Total goals
Liverpool........34.38%......59.38%.......3.13%.....3.13%....32
Chelsea..........30.77%......57.69%.......9.62%.....1.92%....52
Man Utd..........65.31%......22.45%......10.20%.....2.04%....49
Spurs............67.65%......20.59%.......8.82%.....2.94%....34
Blackburn........63.64%......27.27%.......6.06%.....3.03%....33
Arsenal..........53.85%......28.21%......15.38%.....2.56%....39
On face value, these stats indicate that Chelsea and Liverpool are more similar than I and perhaps others realised (or admit). They also suggest that with the next 'poorest' team wrt to defenders scoring (being Blackburn with 6.06% of all goals) do so at nearly double the rate of our defenders we may have to look at why our guys aren't getting forward and chipping in with a few more. Granted that the highest contribution from a defence belongs to Arsenal with just six goals (as opposed to our 1) but an extra 1 or 2 goals this season would have been handy against Charlton or Chelsea or Man U or Borough. All games where we dominated and had numerous corners!
I might even be so bold as to say that we need heading practice all round at the moment - we've only scored 2 headers (6.25% of all our goals) from headers so far this season as compared to Chelsea 7 (13.46%), Man Utd 8 (16.33%), Spurs 6 (17.65%), Blackburn 6 (18.18%) and Arsenal 6 (15.38%) - so much for the aerial threat of Morientes and Crouch (note that Sami and JC are hiding in the corner somewhere)!
It is not surprising then that our stat for goals scored from inside the 18 yard box suffers as well...
..................Inside box...Outside box...Penalties...Total goals
Liverpool........59.38%......31.25%.......9.38%...........32
Chelsea..........73.08%......19.23%.......7.69%...........52
Man Utd..........87.76%.......8.16%.......4.08%...........49
Spurs............82.35%......11.76%.......5.88%...........34
Blackburn........75.76%......12.12%......12.12%...........33
Arsenal..........79.49%......12.82%.......7.69%...........39
What is not surprising is the efficiency of our defensive tactics... with our super strong midfield we are the only team in the top six along with Chelsea to have not conceded a goal in the league from outside the penalty area! 100% of all our goals conceded have been scored from inside the penalty area, 11.76% of them from the penalty spot itself. In contrast, Man Utd, Spurs, Blackburn and Arsenal appear to allow much more space for the opposition having conceded 23.08%, 19.05%, 29.03% and 9.52% of their goals from distance respectively.
Whilst these stats are interesting (to me at least), I don't think the fact that our strikers are contributing a higher percentage of overall goals to the team than Chelsea's Drogba and Crespo excuses them from not converting more chances than they do. Maybe some heading practice and more effective set pieces would see both the stats for goals coming from inside the box and striker contribution and conversion rates increasing?
Perhaps the only thing that can be said with any true conviction is that our defensive players (and the team in general) are not making the most of corners and free kicks however the debate is open as to whether this is caused by poor delivery or our finishing ability plus the 'goalkeeper MOM' effect. I tend towards poor finishing and the goalkeeper MOM effect personally, as we record both the highest number of crosses and highest percentage crosses completed at 28.15 crosses per game(!) with 30% completion rate. Delivery it seem is not necessarily the problem of a magnitude as perceived by some. If we could push our conversion rate up to the average for these six teams (13.21%) we'd have 49 goals to our credit this season! An extra 17 goals would sure be handy and make 2nd spot a hoe in I reckon. That ****** "goalkeeper MOM' effect !!!! I'm sure theres been at least 17 world class saves made against us this season - may be that's the simple explanantion?
Bring on Benfica!
