FanPost

Is Liverpool Doomed without Suarez? A Q&A Session

Q: Isn't it so awesome that Liverpool scored over a hundred goals last year? That's amazing! Thanks you, Luis, you're the best and should never ever leave! Liverpool should've won the damn title in a right and just world, right?

A: Scoring a plethora of goals is certainly fun, entertaining for the spectator, and quite the achievement for a side. However, there's also the small matter of not just putting the spherical object in the other team's net thing, but preventing the other side from putting the spherical object in your own net thing. Liverpool was quite bad at the prevention part.

Q: Okay, what is reasonably expected of a title contending side, as far as scoring goals, conceding goals, and goal differential is concerned?

A: In looking at the past 19 seasons of the Premier League, since the 95/96 season that was the first with 20 teams, title-winning sides averaged 80.84 goals for, 32.05 goals against, and a goal differential of 48.79. Medians for those figures were quite similar, with 79 GF, 33 GA, and 47 GD.

Obviously, Liverpool was quite above the standard as far as scoring goals is concerned, by scoring 101. In the past 19 years, only Pellegrini's City side from last season and Ancelotti's 09/10 Chelsea squad scored more, with 102 and 103, respectively. Of course, both of these title winning sides were much better than Liverpool was last season, conceding on 32 and 37 goals respectively, as opposed to Liverpool's 49.

In fact, Liverpool's 49 GA wouldn't have just been the most ever for a title winning side in this era, it was tied with Wenger's 11/12 3rd place Arsenal for most goals amongst the top four in the past 19 years.

If Liverpool had managed to win the title this past season, it would've been an aberration of the highest order. Which is okay, aberrations exist in football, but the takeaway is that Liverpool can improve in certain areas...

Q: Okay, clearly Liverpool can't afford to sell Suarez, right? He carried LFC out of mid table purgatory! Surely he'll stay. We'll fall out of the top four without him, right?

A: Not necessarily. If we do a similar analysis of teams from the past 19 seasons that finished in fourth place, the averages are 63.95 GF, 38.37 GA, and 25.58 GD. Medians on those figures are again similar, with 67 GF, 37 GA, and 27 GD. (**note: even with extracting the extreme outlier that was the 04/05 Everton side that finished fourth with a goal differential of -1, the mean and median goal differentials are 27.06 and 27.5, respectively.)

Which is to say, even if Liverpool's goal production over an entire season drops 20-30 from last year to this year, they're still within the lines of what historically, on the balance of probabilities, is what top four sides are expected to do. The goals conceded thing, on the other hand...

Q: Dude, look at Spurs. They sold Bale, and they dropped off. Selling your best player is stupid and dumb, end of!

A: That wasn't phrased in the interrogative, but whatever, I'll address your point.

Tottenham scored 66 goals with Bale in the lineup in 12/13, and 55 without in 13/14. They were barely amongst the standard for a top-four attack with Bale, and were clearly below the standard without him.

But they have issues on the other end of the spectrum: they conceded 46 in 12/13 and 51 in 13/14. Though that isn't much worse than Liverpool...

At the end of the day, Liverpool is in much better position to deal with shipping Suarez to Spain than Spurs were when they shipped Bale to Iberia, especially if Sanchez is coming the other way.

Q: So what is your point exactly?

A: My point is: Liverpool don't need to replace all the goals that they had with Suarez in the lineup. They need to sort the damn midfield and stop leaking so many goals.

My general hypothesis is that if Liverpool scores 20 less goals next season, whilst conceding 20 less goals next year, they can reasonably be expected, on the balance of probabilities, to be a more realistic title contender than they were in the past campaign.

If you consider some of the true golden standards of this era, Wenger's unbeaten "Invincibles" of 03/04 (73 GF, 26 GA), or Mourinho's once beaten Chelsea in the following year (72 GF, 15 GA), what made them great wasn't their mind melting attack as much as it was their midfield and defense. That's not the only way to do it of course, as the aforementioned 09/10 Chelsea and 13/14 City had much more potent attacks coupled with defenses and midfields that were still quite great.

The best Liverpool side of this era, Benitez's 08/09 squad, scored 77 and conceded only 27. Of course, it's worth stating again that aberrations can and do exist in football, and this Liverpool side failed to beat a United team to the title that, by only scoring 68 goals, was tied with Wenger's 97/98 Arsenal for most being the most anemic amongst title winning sides in the era.

Q: How would a 14/15 Liverpool without Suarez measure up to the 08/09 Liverpool? Could they score the 80 or more goals that you said are, on average, required to win the title in most years?

A: I'm inclined to think that, in terms of goal production, Rodgers has more tools at his disposal than Rafa ever did with the cowboys.

I would be so bold as to say that current Sturridge and 08/09 Torres are at the very least even, and at best it could be said that Sturridge is of higher quality. Torres scored 24 in 33 in his first season at LFC going into the 08/09 campaign, and contributed 14 in 24 in an injury-plagued 08/09 season. Sturridge has scored 31 in 43 in his season and a half at Liverpool going into the next campaign.

Would one rather have a half season of Keane, Kuyt, and Ngog as backup strikers, or have Lambert, Borini, Sanchez (if deployed as a nine), and/or (insert additional striker purchase here)? Lambert was never as good as Keane in his prime, but might prove to be better than Keane was when he arrived at Liverpool. In any case, this is a situation that will likely be addressed further going into next season, but I anticipate Liverpool having better striker depth than in 08/09.

Would you rather have the attacking midfield and wing options of Babel, Riera, Benayoun, Gerrard, Kuyt, and...El Zhar? Or would you prefer Sanchez, Sterling, Lallana, Coutinho, Suso (if he stays), Henderson (if deployed as an AM for industry), or whatever else may come? I have to say, I'm excited by the potential of the latter. I mean, 08/09 Gerrard was all-World, and Kuyt was a legendary workhorse with a great goal return, but the potential of this group, especially IF you can get Sanchez in exchange for Bitey...

There is reason to believe that there is 80+ goal potential in Liverpool next season, even without Mr. McNibblestein.

Q: Okay, so we have to fix that defense though. So what kind of defenders do we need to buy?

A: Well honestly, the central defenders are probably okay. Probably. Glen Johnson is a bum but could maybe find his head in his rear end at some point, and Flanagan is a serviceable backup. Enrique returns, but we could always use more fullbacks...

Real issue of course is the midfield. We're a long way away from the days of Mascherano and Alonso...

Q: HOW DARE YOU! STEVEN GERRARD IS A SAINT! HE CAN PLAY 90 MINUTES A MATCH EVERY MATCH OF THE SEASON AS LONG AS HE WANTS DAMMIT!

A; Oh for fuck's sake...

Please make any posts here geared towards creating discussion. Any works that are copied and pasted from other sites will be deleted. This isn't a place to advertise services or your blog, it's an extension of our site. Please treat it as such.

In This FanPost

Teams