Even casual observers of recent Liverpool games could deduce that the Reds have been criminally wasteful of late, and the underlying numbers serve to highlight the alarming rate of decline in that regard.
On Sky Sports‘ Monday Night Football, presenter David Jones brought up a graphic showing the six-game rolling average for shot conversion for Jurgen Klopp’s side, highlighting how it has ‘fallen off a cliff’ from 17% in February to 6% now.
In response to that seismic drop in the space of two months, Jamie Carragher said: “It has to change. I think Liverpool’s xG in this run is around nine and they’ve scored two during the run that they’re on, which is not great. For it to go like that, right now at the most pivotal of times, is a huge problem.
“There’s still time to fix that and get it back, but the nature of players is that it’ll always be a little bit like that because of the way they finish, the type of players that they are. That has to change very quickly if Liverpool are to go back into the title race.”
Liverpool scored 24 goals in their first seven Premier League games of the calendar year, hitting four past Newcastle, Bournemouth, Chelsea, Brentford and Luton in quick succession. They’ve netted just nine times in their subsequent six top-flight matches, with three of those coming against rock-bottom Sheffield United at Anfield.
They took 21 shots and had an xG of 2.81 against Crystal Palace on Sunday (Sofascore), but Dean Henderson still came away with a clean sheet and a victory for his team.
As Carragher said, the Reds need to rediscover their scoring boots pronto if they’re to remain in touch in the title race.
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