Comment That’s when someone goes to celebrate a birthday at Anfield. The force that broke van Dijk’s spell

After 12 games Liverpool have 4 wins, 4 draws and the same number of defeats. Last season they lost only twice. Moreover, youngster Crysencio Summerville, who celebrates his birthday today, broke the spell of Virgil van Dijk, who tasted the bitterness of defeat after 70 league games at Anfield.

Attack

The Reds players are certainly not playing badly, but the fact that a number of midfielders have been injured since the start of the season has taken its toll. In addition, Sadio Mané has left and the inclusion of new reinforcements including Darwin Núñez is slightly problematic to say the least.

However, Liverpool’s attacking power is still great, which can be seen in the goals scored, which the Reds’ strikers have scored a total of 23. Only the top 4 teams are doing better, and apart from Manchester City (37 goals) only marginally so.

Even the xG stats confirm the fact that the attack is doing well. In this table Manchester City would have 27 goals, Newcastle United 26 and Liverpool 25. So there is definitely no problem in attack, even though Reds players have been much more effective in past seasons. However, above we have outlined a few factors why this is not the case currently.

Defence

Liverpool’s numbers are not that bad, nor has Jurgen Klopp had an injury problem, at least not to the extent he did back then, but a very apt summary of the Reds defence was recently given by Alan Shearer, who no longer sees the passion in several players.

This is once again confirmed by the xGA stats, as it says Allison should have 20 goals conceded instead of 15, which would be the 6th worst position in this imaginary Premier League goals conceded table this season.

Saturday’s game against Leeds United was a perfect demonstration of everything we’ve written about here. The away side had a number of chances to score and it was only because of the inability of the strikers to see a promising run to a successful conclusion that we didn’t see more goals.

If Manchester City, for example, had been given so many chances, we would be talking about at least 3-4 goals scored. Only Citizens players in red jerseys managed to defend, significantly weaker teams did not.

This brings us back to the aforementioned passion for the game. The entire Reds team attacks often and in many men, however, they just as often concede and the defence is subsequently outnumbered by the lightning counter-attacks that many units in the Premier League can boast.

Last but not least is the under-emphasis of the stoppers, led by van Dijk, for whom we see a number of schoolboy mistakes that were unthinkable in previous years. And it’s logical, this squad has won everything it could. So logically, some decline was bound to come.

What’s next?

Summerville, the 21-year-old striker who was born in Rotterdam, may have sent the Liverpool players to their knees with his activity, giving himself a lovely birthday present today, but we can’t count on Klopp’s bunch to somehow pull it off.

The Reds players are still putting in good performances, but the truth is that it very likely won’t be enough for the Champions League this season.

Moreover, we are talking about Klopp’s proverbial 7th season, after which he left both Mainz and Dortmund, which nobody at Anfield can imagine. The 55-year-old German coach has a contract until 2026.

The whole team needs a boost and in this respect, a month’s break for the World Cup in Qatar may serve perfectly.

Sources: Twitter, Understat, Premier League