There are many valid reasons to criticise Liverpool this season. The performances of their midfield, no matter who has played, have frequently been below the high standards which both Jurgen Klopp and the Reds’ fanbase demand.
Many of the reasons for their downturn in form are perfectly understandable. Liverpool had arguably the most draining campaign in football history in 2021/22, so to follow that with a condensed summer thanks to a mid-season World Cup was always likely to be problematic. Seven of the options for the midfield have already been injured this season, with Curtis Jones, Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain three of the club’s top four players for games missed.
A much longer standing issue has been the relative lack of goals and assists which they have provided. It hasn’t typically been their job, in fairness, with their primary aim to provide a platform upon which the full-backs and front three could wreak havoc. But with Liverpool struggling to string a run of wins together this term, further contributions from the centre of the team would be welcome.
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After the first 16 matches of 2022/23 in all competitions, James Milner is the only midfielder to record an assist. Even then, the goal in question ( against Crystal Palace ) owed far more to the dribbling and finishing skills of Luis Diaz rather than the creative ability of the Reds’ veteran.
When your goalkeeper has provided as many assists as your entire midfield, you might have a problem. Former Liverpool left-back Jose Enrique highlighted this issue with a tweet listing when six of the club's midfielders last created a goal in the Premier League.
Only two of the sextet have picked up an assist in 2022, three are now on a year-long drought and Harvey Elliott has yet to break his creative duck in the top flight. But while the facts are accurate, they don’t tell the full story. For instance, Keita set up Champions League goals against both Benfica and Villarreal, while Jordan Henderson effectively assisted the opener at Anfield against the latter, it just doesn’t go down as such in the stats as it was an own goal.
The other caveat to the midfield’s lack of assists is the players receiving their chances are not converting them. Per FBRef, Elliott has the joint-sixth biggest margin between expected assists and goals created in Europe’s big five leagues in 2022/23. We have seen evidence of this in the last two weeks, with the 19-year-old creating Liverpool’s first clear-cut chance of the game in his last two starts, against Manchester City and Nottingham Forest.
And those misses (by Diogo Jota and Fabio Carvalho respectively) merely continued the overriding theme of Elliott’s career, in that he is Liverpool’s creative nearly man. He has set up eight clear-cut chances for the Reds in all competitions and not one has been converted when around 39 per cent of such opportunities find the net on average. In each of the last three seasons one Liverpool player has created exactly eight big chances, and each time they picked up three assists for their efforts.
Since the summer of 2018, 16 Liverpool players have been responsible for providing at least eight opportunities which Opta would expect the attacker to score. Sort them by the conversion rate of those chances and you’ll find that seven of the bottom eight are midfielders, and even the odd man out in that group – Xherdan Shaqiri – wasn’t an out-and-out forward.
Of course, some chances are inevitably better than others, even if they all meet the requirements to be classified as ‘clear-cut’ by the Premier League’s data provider. But even if Elliott’s eight were only average value at best, there’s just a 1.9 per cent likelihood that none would be scored.
Liverpool’s midfielders have collectively set up 11 clear-cut chances this season, with Elliott and Henderson joint-second overall with four apiece, yet have picked up no assists from them. The Reds don’t particularly have a midfield creativity problem, they have a finishing problem.
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