Chelsea were outrun in all 35 Premier League matches this season until they faced Arne Slot‘s Liverpool at Anfield.
Correctly or incorrectly, a criticism faced by Slot’s side this season has been how often the opposition has covered more ground than the Reds.
While it is true that possession-based teams tend to cover less ground, the latest stat to emerge about Liverpool’s running can leave no doubt that something is wrong.
Until playing Liverpool, Chelsea had been outrun in all 35 of their Premier League matches this season. However, they ran further than the Reds in the 1-1 draw at Anfield.
In addition, Liverpool are the only other club to have run less distance than their opponents in more than 25 of their matches, being outrun in 32 of 36 Premier League outings.
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - Saturday, May 9, 2026: Liverpool's Alexis Mac Allister is challenged by Chelsea's Andrey Santos (R) during the FA Premier League match between Liverpool FC and Chelsea FC at Anfield. (Photo by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)
During Saturday’s match, Chelsea collectively covered 104km to Liverpool’s 103.35km, according to BBC Sport.
Liverpool spent 37.29 percent of the match walking, 54.63 percent jogging and 8.09 percent sprinting – a slightly higher percentage than Chelsea on the sprinting front.
Arne Slot admitted pressing has been impacted by fitness levels
While running less than the opposition isn’t always a negative, this pattern of being outworked reflects poorly on a Liverpool team that don’t look fit enough to play at their best.
Back in February, Slot explained that Liverpool’s press wasn’t up to scratch because of the squad’s fitness.
“One of the things that hurts you if you are not as fit as we are now is the pressing,” Slot said.
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - Saturday, May 9, 2026: Liverpool's head coach Arne Slot reacts during the FA Premier League match between Liverpool FC and Chelsea FC at Anfield. (Photo by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)
“And if you are more open in pressing – and what I mean by open is not that we conceded 15 counter-attacks, which some pundits try to say, which is not true – but we weren’t as effective in our pressing as we were last season, because we were not ready enough yet and that takes a bit of time.
“Now we are much more ready.”
Slot refutes notion that he asks Liverpool to sit back
It is difficult to say there have been tangible improvements since Slot made these comments nearly three months ago.
It is also entirely possible that we don’t see an improvement until next season, when the players have had a proper, albeit shortened, pre-season, unlike last year when their schedule was changed by the passing of Diogo Jota.
An arguable effect of Liverpool not being fit enough has been their tendency not to push on and gain comfortable leads after scoring.
This was put to Slot after the Reds surrendered a 1-0 lead against Chelsea, and the coach strongly refuted that he would ask his team to sit back.
“I think it’s not fair to me that anyone could ever think that I tell my players to back off and to drop down and not to press them,” said the boss.
“Either you haven’t seen my teams playing last season and large parts of this season, let alone since I’m a manager. But it did look like that, that we dropped down, but that’s never the intention.
“That was in this situation us not being able to control all the midfield.”