It remains difficult to review Arne Slot’s start to life at Anfield despite a strong opening 10 games in charge on the red half of Merseyside.
Gary Neville, for his part, was keen to emphasise that Liverpool shouldn’t be considered title contenders following the 2-1 win over Wolves back in late September.
It was admittedly not the team’s strongest performance of the season, as the Reds had to battle it out to gain all three points at the Molineux.
However, the pundit’s post-game analysis seems to have been just another example of overreaction and anti-Liverpool bias. Further to that point, the analysts at Opta have stats which appear to prove the former defender wrong.
Opta Analyst have shared a league table based on ‘expected points’, which takes a look at the underlying numbers of each club in the Premier League to see where they should be ideally placed amongst their competitors.
For further clarity, here is how Opta explain their expected points calculation: “Our expected points model simulates the number of goals scored by each side in each match based on the expected goals (xG) value of every shot taken. It then uses the simulated number of goals to determine the match outcome (win/draw/loss).
“Each match is then simulated 10,000 times. The expected points for each team in each match can then be calculated based on the proportion of simulations they win/draw/lose.”
It’s early days, but Gary Neville’s prediction is off the mark already
As we can see in the table, Liverpool are first – the Reds are also, of course, atop the actual Premier League table.
Opta claims that Arne Slot’s team’s position is ‘fully deserved’. Liverpool’s predicted points tally is 15.6, which is 1.9 better than second-placed Chelsea at 13.7.
After seven game weeks, Liverpool have the best defensive record in the league, with only two goals conceded. The six-time Champions League winners’ positive expected goal difference is +8.9, comfortably the best in the English top division.
Of course, we fans must not get ahead of ourselves – as the manager keeps repeating, we are yet to face a top, top side this season.
However, given the data we have, it’s fair to say that Neville’s opinion of Liverpool ‘not looking like title winners’ seems a bit off the mark. It’s too early to say if we will win the lot, but it’s even more ridiculous to claim that the Merseyside team won’t even contend based on the performance in one away game!
Well, expecting sense from the Sky Sports pundit when it comes to Liverpool would be a mistake. We just need to keep our heads down and hope that the squad is ready for the challenges that are coming after the international break.