The Liverpool Offside’s 2016-17 EPL Results by Contributor

The season is over, and for most people that means it’s time to dig into how Liverpool did. To pick apart the highs and lows; examine the successes and the failures; to determine what went right and what went wrong on the pitch and off. We’ll be doing that, too—in fact we started today with part one of our season review, digging into the big picture questions, passing judgement on 2016-17, and outlining how we’ll all remember it.

But we also thought it could be fun, given the role routine and superstition can so often play in sport and fandom, to take a quick look back at how The Liverpool Offside staff did in the 2016-17 season. To look back at our match previews and recaps for each match and see how they lined up with the actual results. To see which TLO staff members were a good omen for the team on matchday and which ones just might have been cause for concern.

For the 38 league games, we broke out the TLO contributor who did the preview, the instant match reaction, and the full recap. All told, ten different people were involved at one stage or another this past season, and seven contributors wrote at least four story items in an individual category, giving a useable sample size to compare. So. Let’s dig in, starting with a look at which TLO preview writer got the best league results.

When it came to match previews, then, we had a clear winner in Chuck, whose 2.24 points per preview had Liverpool on pace for an 85 point season good enough to challenge for the title in any year where Chelsea doesn’t run away with it. Sadly, things didn’t look so bright for Kevin, whose 1.75 points per preview would have seen Liverpool battling for sixth with Manchester United.

While Steph was solidly in the Europa League places when it came to previews, she turned things around to lead the way on First Thoughts with 2.27 points per game when covering our instant reaction piece. At the other end of it, both Zach and Jordan were balancing out Steph’s title challenging form by battling for a place in the Europa League.

Finally, for the full match recaps, we find our individual champion for 2016-17 match story involvement on TLO, as James Bridget registered 2.38 points for every recap they wrote. Things didn’t look nearly as good for Kevin, though, who balanced things out by recording the worst individual results with 1.44 points per recap.

When looking at results across all three match items, the three individual winners again lead the way, though results at either end smooth out a bit and we no longer have anyone gunning for a hypothetical 90-point season.

Still, there does look to be some clear separation here, and on paper at least Liverpool did best when Chuck, James Bridget, and Steph were involved—and especially when Chuck was on match previews, Steph on First Thoughts, and James Bridget on the full recap, and the combined numbers reflect that.

When looking at specific pairings, Chuck, Steph, and James Bridget combined that way 13 times in the league in 2016-17 with a record of 10-1-2 and 2.38 points per game. The only other specific combination that appeared more than twice was Steph, Jordan, and Kevin, who had a record of 2-2-1 and 1.6 points per game. Never mind Coutinho, Firmino, and Mané—I think it’s pretty clear which trio’s shoulders it is that Liverpool’s hopes in 2017-18 rest most heavily on.