We’ve all been at a match when our team is struggling to play through the opposition’s deep lying defensive structure.
If an attacking player moves into a little space outside the penalty box, the familiar shout of ‘SHOOT’ will come up from sections of the crowd.
But while a long-range goal is always a possibility and looks spectacular, the odds of scoring from outside the box are far from in the shooter’s favour.
Liverpool assistant manager Pep Lijnders has spoken about this in the past, with reference to the Reds’ need to create ‘eight or nine out of 10’ quality chances.
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As a shot from outside the box has around a one-in-twenty hope of finding the back of the net, the Dutchman clearly has a point.
He and Jurgen Klopp will therefore be delighted with how Liverpool are performing with regards to clear-cut chances.
This slightly subjective metric is used by Opta to denote opportunities where you would expect the attacker to score, be that from a penalty or very close range or if they are clean through on goal.
While it might be considered simplistic in the age of analysing matches with complex expected goal models, the team which has more clear-cut chances wins more often than the one which leads the xG battle.
And though it offers no guarantees on this front, of course, Liverpool have outdone their opponents for high quality chances in 20 of their 26 league matches in 2021/22 while being on the wrong side of the equation only twice.
Their ability to restrict such opportunities at the back end of the field deserves a lot of credit.
However, their record for conceding clear-cut chances is only a shade better than figures posted by Brighton, Crystal Palace and Wolves, to give three examples. It’s in attack where they have no real peers.
That includes Manchester City too, with the Reds’ average of 4.1 per match eclipsing the league leaders’ already impressive 3.0 per game.
The high point for this was the recent 6-0 win over Leeds United, in which Liverpool had eight clear-cut chances for the first time in a league game for eight years.
And when Sadio Mane saw his point-blank effort miraculously saved by countryman Edouard Mendy in the Carabao Cup final, it was the Reds’ 148th big chance in all competitions this season.
That took them past their total for the whole of the 2020/21 campaign, even though they have played 12 fewer matches.
Virgil van Dijk’s last-minute header against Leeds ensured Liverpool have had more clear-cut chances than in 2018/19 and following the match with Chelsea they are now just six adrift of their final tally from their league title winning season.
A big part of this increased creativity is down to Trent Alexander-Arnold. When he played a wonderful long pass to put Luis Diaz through on goal at Wembley, it was the 19th clear-cut chance he has fashioned in 2021/22.
That’s the total with which he topped the Reds’ rankings last season, and only he (with 23 in 2019/20) and Mohamed Salah (21 in 2018/19) provided more in either of the two campaigns prior to that.
As well as setting up Diaz against Chelsea, Alexander-Arnold also created a clear-cut chance for Mane.
Although the number 10 was unable to guide his first half header on target, it was the eighth high quality opportunity he has had thanks to Trent, making this Liverpool’s most potent combination this season.
Whether Alexander-Arnold can match the 12 clear-cut chances he created for Roberto Firmino two seasons ago remains to be seen, but individual landmarks don’t really matter.
What’s important is that the whole team keeps pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in terms of the volume of the golden opportunities which Lijnders craves from them.
If they can, talk of a quadruple will certainly feel a little more realistic.
