Liverpool have been out-run by opponents all season - but does it even matter?
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It is the biggest percentage disparity Liverpool have suffered this season, with the exception of one match - a 3-0 defeat to Manchester City on November 9.Armed with this alarming statistic, I have taken a look back across the whole of Liverpool's Premier League season and in a campaign dogged with inconsistency, one thing has remained the same. Liverpool cover less ground than their opponents almost every single week.In the 30 matches they have played so far, the Reds have covered more ground than the team they are playing against on only four occasions.
In their last 23 games, they have come out on top for distance covered only once - against Tottenham on December 20, in a match the Reds won 2-1.Liverpool's worst outing for this statistic was on November 9, when Man City covered 9km more than them on their way to that aforementioned 3-0 victory. Sunday's Anfield encounter with Spurs is the second-worst.Over the course of the first 30 games of this campaign, Liverpool have averaged 108.96km per game in distance covered, compared to 112.4 km per game achieved by their opponents.Overall, Arne Slot's team has covered 103.28km less than their opponents so far this term.
But it's possibly not as bad as you might think.The amount of ground being covered is certainly down on last season, when Slot led Liverpool to the Premier League title with an average of 110.68km per match. But if you have been missing the Gegenpress era under Jurgen Klopp, then think again.Across the German's eight seasons in charge, his teams averaged Distance Covered per game of 110.64km, marginally less than Slot's title-winning season.In fact, in the year that Klopp ended Liverpool's 30-year wait for an English league title, his side actually returned a distance covered average of 108.39km per game, which is actually lower than Liverpool's current average this season.The lowest average figure under Klopp came in the troublesome 2022/23 season, when a combination of injuries and an ageing squad (particularly in midfield) resulted in a fifth-placed finish and an average of 107.42km per match - the 16th lowest in the league.There is a strong case to be made for possession-based teams like Liverpool to cover less ground than some of their opponents.