Georginio Wijnaldum: A Quick Look At The Stats

Liverpool look set to sign Georginio Wijnaldum for a fee believed to be around £25m. I’ve taken a very quick look at some of his stats from the last campaign (with a few words on Mané here for good measure too).

Last season, Wijnaldum scored eleven league goals against an expected goals total of 10.43, giving him a performance rating of 105%. He and another Reds new boy Sadio Mané were very closely matched here (Mané also scored eleven, vs an ExpG tally of 11.64) but whereas Mané missed his one penalty, Wijnaldum scored his.

That aside, their records were virtually identical, and it’s clear that Jurgen Klopp has identified that Liverpool need more goals from midfield; Wijnaldum and Mané were ranked joint-third in the Premier League for goals whilst playing in midfield last season, so both should go a long way to addressing that issue.

Nathaniel Clyne: 2014/15 Stats Review

I took an in-depth look at Roberto Firmino (here) last Monday; now Liverpool’s new £12.5m right-back comes under the Bass Tuned To Red microscope. The former Southampton player (and there’s a heavily used phrase on Liverpool blogs these days) may not necessarily have impressive raw numbers, but factoring in location yields some interesting results.

Roberto Firmino: 2014/15 Stats Review

There’s no doubt who Liverpool’s most highly rated signing so far this summer is; Hoffenheim’s Brazilian attacker Roberto Firmino. As is customary around here, I’ve taken a look at his stats from last season to see what we can learn about him, and what he might contribute in the Premier League next season.

LFC Creativity Review: Seven Games In

Liverpool have not made a flying start in 2014/15, yet I don’t believe that things have been quite as bad as they have been portrayed.

One of the key things that I monitor is expected assists, which as you may know by now is based upon where on the pitch chances are created, and the likelihood that those opportunities will be scored. Using this metric, the Reds appear to be in fine fettle.

Liverpool FC Creativity Combinations 2014/15

Last season I hit upon an idea: a creativity combination heatmap (which you can see here). It shows which players have linked up to create goalscoring opportunities most often, and how creative players have been overall.

Well, it’s back for 2014/15, except with a few enhancements…

Chance Quality: 2014/15 Prediction

Regular readers will know that I spent last season compiling chance quality information for the Premier League, to see which teams created scoring opportunities in the best and worse areas. Simon Gleave is compiling pre-season predictions on how the league table will look at the end of 2014/15 season, so I’ve decided to give it a go using this system.

It may turn out that chance quality is not consistent from season-to-season (and indeed I do expect this to be the case), but there’s only one way to find out, so I will attempt to forecast the final 2014/15 Premier League table using this data.