While a football match can be analysed using expected goal data, it doesn’t tell a clear story. When watching a game, you’re not considering decimal points and statistical models, but you might think “we deserved to win as we had more good chances than them.”
This was the case when Liverpool beat Southampton 3-1 at Anfield on Saturday. The visitors had three Opta-defined clear-cut chances (which are opportunities “where a player should reasonably be expected to score”), with the Reds thankful that Alisson Becker was in fine form to save two of them in the second half.
And Liverpool still deserved to win as they had six big chances of their own, making it an elite attacking performance. In only 20 of their 248 matches since the start of the 2018/19 season have they had at least that many, putting the Southampton victory into their top eight per cent of games by this measure.
