Liverpool are not covering the ground that they have in previous seasons but history suggests this isn't their only problem
Cody Gakpo of Liverpool in action with Randal Kolo Muani of Spurs
Cody Gakpo of Liverpool in action with Randal Kolo Muani of Spurs(Image: Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)
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Dropping points at home to a Tottenham Hotspur side that had lost its last six consecutive matches is pretty much as miserable a result as Liverpool supporters could have expected on Sunday evening. And yet it had an air of inevitability about it.
In the month of March alone, the Reds have managed to lose 2-1 to a team that had only won twice all season in Wolverhampton Wanderers, go down 1-0 to Galatasaray in Istanbul and now find a way to drop two points from the jaws of victory against Spurs, however unconvincing it may have appeared, had they hung on.
Only a routine victory in the FA Cup against Wolves, three days after losing on the same pitch, has spared Arne Slot from a winless first half of the month, but not before letting in a sloppy consolation goal in injury time.
Conceding late goals has become Liverpool's speciality this season, with no fewer than eight flying into the Reds' net in the 90th minute or later. Former Everton striker Richarlison can gleefully add his name to the list of late heroes for the opposition.
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Sunday's 1-1 draw, which felt like a defeat, was received by a smattering of boos by those who had bothered to hang around for the final whistle. The fact that plenty of tickets were still available on the morning of the match speaks for itself, even on Mother's Day. Apologies to any mums who actually had to attend the match as a special treat!
Liverpool have an abundance of problems to contend with at the moment - injuries, lack of form, players being forced to play out of position - the list goes on. There certainly doesn't appear to be much of a spirit about their play and that has transcended onto the terraces.
From my spec in the middle of the Kop, one thing that I have noticed all season is that the team appears to lack energy, both in and out of possession. Because of this, a few weeks ago, I started tracking how Liverpool were faring in the 'distance covered' stakes compared to their opponents.
So it came as a bit of a timely surprise, when on Tuesday, Slot proclaimed the following in his Champions League second leg pre-match press conference: "I can say at this club and all the other clubs I've worked, 80-90% of the games I've managed my teams have outworked the other teams and my teams have created more chances than the other team."
It's worth me putting on record that I am not traditionally a statistics man. I'm not one for doing 'deep dives' and making pivot tables (don't even mention double pivots, they're just defensive midfielders in my book), but I was keen to find out if the running stats married up with my 'eye test'.
After a handful of consecutive matches, a clear pattern had emerged - the Reds were covering less ground than the other team in every game they played.
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Never has this been more evident than against Tottenham on Sunday, who, under the guise of Igor Tudor, were expected to get a pasting at Anfield. Not so. And their work rate may have had something to do with it.
Across the 90 minutes, Tottenham covered 118.27 km compared to Liverpool's 109.6 km - a difference of 8.67 km. Nearly five and a half miles in old money. Putting it another way, Spurs covered 7.33% more ground than their hosts during the match. 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. A damning statistic? Certainly on the face of it. 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. But the fact remains that the Reds have either drawn or lost more than half of the matches this season. All the more remarkable then that they are still very much in the hunt for Champions League qualification.
And in stark contrast, league leaders Arsenal also top the distance covered charts this season, with an average of 112.5km per match.
The lack of energy, particularly in both midfield and the wide areas, has frustrated fans all season and made for a dull spectacle that has done little to enthuse or excite.
With just eight Premier League games to go, Slot's side is a whopping 37 goals behind the total they achieved in the For column at the end of last season, which tells you that converting possession and chances into goals has been a real issue all season.
But perhaps if this team worked a little bit harder and with a little bit more intensity, it could still salvage something to remember from this sorry campaign of underachievement.
Summary of distance covered sources by season:
2020/21 – 2024/25: Opta Analyst and FBref via Google Gemini
2016/17 – 2019/20: Historical archives from the Premier League and SkillCorner via Google Gemini