This Week in Stats: Liverpool counter-attack in style

Liverpool’s big win papered over defensive issues, Burnley continue to steal wins on the road and Arsenal’s big six’woes continued at Manchester City.

Liverpool were at their slick counter-attacking best in their 4-1 win at West Ham on Saturday. They completed just 43 final third passes, their fewest in the league under Jurgen Klopp, yet generated a total of four clear-cut chances. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain scored their third goal from just their fifth attack which included a shot.

For the second time in 2017-18, Liverpool broke away and scored from an opposition corner. The remarkable thing is that they’ve only scored two from their own corners in the league this season. Unfortunately for West Ham, one of Liverpool’s successful corners was also in this match.

But as good as Liverpool were going forward, their defense was not without its faults. West Ham had three clear-cut chances despite only having eight touches in the Reds’ penalty area.

Since the start of 2016-17, a team has only done that once before; strangely, it was last week, when West Brom had three against Manchester City from just seven touches in the box.

Fortunately for Liverpool, the Hammers missed two of their great chances. Had they been scored (one was at 0-0, and one shortly after Liverpool went 3-1 up), it could’ve been a very different match.

It was also only the sixth time in the last 870 Premier League matches that a team has had three clear-cut chances from only six shots in total. Liverpool have been the team on the wrong end of that three times. As well as West Ham, Watford (in 2015-16) and Swansea (2016-17) have done it to Klopp’s Reds.

In terms of opposition attacking efficiency (on the stats front), it was similar to Liverpool’s recent capitulation at Spurs. Thankfully for the Reds, Andre Ayew is no Harry Kane. Sadly for Slaven Bilic, the defeat marked the end of his West Ham tenure.

Did Burnley steal another win at Southampton?

West Ham may have only had eight touches in the Liverpool penalty area, but they were not alone this weekend. Burnley also had eight in their match at Southampton. To make matters worse for the home team, the Clarets won 1-0.

It was a real smash and grab affair. Sean Dyche’s team had just two shots in the box, and only one on target. The expected goals score for the match was 0.9 to 0.2 in Southampton’s favor.

It’s hard to make a case the Saints deserved to win based on that, as in a low shot value match anything can happen. It’s not a new position for Burnley to be in either.

Burnley have the fourth best points tally on the road in the Premier League this season. They’ve won three, drawn two and lost one of their six matches, with a goal difference of zero.

FiveThirtyEight’s data shows that they have the worst expected goals difference by away teams in the division at -9.2. If you were to take an expected goal difference in a match of one as equaling a definitive result, then Burnley should have drawn two and lost four of their six games.

The Clarets continue to over-perform, and Dyche has been strongly linked with the manager’s position at Everton. He might be a success there, but he will be lucky to get the same results from the numbers he has been posting with Burnley.

Next: Death, taxes and Peter Crouch

Arsenal struggled in yet another big match

The fortunes of two teams who had eight touches in the opposition penalty area this weekend has been covered. Here’s another: Arsenal.

It wasn’t the fewest penalty box touches by the away side in a big six clash in the last three seasons, but it was the fewest by a team other than Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United.

In fairness to the Gunners, despite the scoreline, they did manage to limit Manchester City’s goal-scoring opportunities. Pep’s boys only had nine efforts at the Arsenal goal.

Statistically, it was fairly similar to the corresponding fixture in 2016-17. Arsenal had six shots, with three in the box, while City had five on target and three clear-cut chances in both matches.

The visitors had more of the ball than most away sides at the Etihad manage, too. The Citizens logged their third lowest figures for both possession and final third passes completed in home league games under Guardiola. Arsenal also completed the second most final third passes by a visiting time since the beginning of last season.

But they couldn’t translate that to pressure in the City box. Hector Bellerin was their only player to have more than one touch in the home box, and he only had two. Alexandre Lacazette made the most of his one to give Arsenal hope of a comeback, but perhaps he should’ve started the match.

The result means that Arsene’s Wenger boys failed yet again in a big match. They are bottom of the mini-league of the big six teams since the start of 2016-17.

Wenger can rightly point to wins against both City and Chelsea on their way to winning last season’s FA Cup, but Arsenal fans want to see their team winning those matches in the league. The Gunners host Tottenham after the international break. A defeat there, and the ‘Wenger Out’ debate will spring into action yet again.