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They went to Old Trafford having won their previous two games – 2-1 against Brighton and 3-1 against Sheffield United – though both contests at Anfield did again feature a lot of attempts.
Liverpool had 30 shots against Brighton, with Salah scoring the winner with one of his 12 attempts at goal. Klopp said after the game that his team played well until they got close to goal when they were “in a bit of a rush”.
They had another 29 shots against Sheffield United, requiring a stunner from Alexis Mac Allister to take the lead again after Chris Wilder’s men had brought it back to 1-1, with Cody Gakpo neatly heading in a late third.
Across their last three games, Liverpool have scored seven goals from a total of 87 shots, at a conversion rate of 8.0%. Their average across their 31 Premier League games this season is 11.5%, which shows it has been more of a problem in recent games rather than a general one, but they are trailing both title rivals Man City (12.7%) and Arsenal (14.5%) for shot conversion.
Indeed,
of teams in the top half of the Premier League table, only Manchester United (10.2%) and Brighton (11.0%) have a worse conversion rate than Klopp’s men.
Liverpool are still the league’s second-top scorers with 72 goals in 31 games, behind only leaders Arsenal (75). That could be due to the sheer volume of their shots.
Klopp’s side have attempted 629 in total (including blocked shots), 70 more than the next most (Man City – 559) and 112 more than Arsenal (517), who have recorded the third-most.
Liverpool have only scored seven more goals than Newcastle United, though, despite attempting 197 more shots.
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After 31 games this season, Liverpool are averaging 20.3 shots per game, the most in a league season so far under Klopp. They are on course to beat their previous highest shot total in a league campaign, in 2021-22 (729 – 19.2 per game) when they ran Manchester City very close in the title race.
You might therefore assume
the other season they narrowly missed out on the title (2018-19) and the year they won it (2019-20) wouldn’t be far behind. But that’s not the case. In fact,
those two seasons saw Liverpool attempt the fewest shots they have in the Premier League under Klopp. In 18-19 they averaged just 15.1 shots per game, which rose slightly to 15.6 in 19-20.
However,
their shot conversion rate was significantly better, up at 15.5% in 18-19 and 14.4% in 19-20, as opposed to 12.9% in 21-22 and just 11.5% so far this season.
Liverpool have only had one full season under Klopp where they have had a worse conversion rate, which was their chaotic 2020-21 campaign (11.2%).
Despite that,
due to the volume of shots they’re taking, Klopp’s side are still on course to score 88 goals this season, which would better their title-winning season in 19-20 (85 goals) and would be just one shy of 18-19 (89) and six fewer than 21-22 (94).
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A lot of the talk since Sunday has been about how Liverpool are also missing former players Sadio Mané and Roberto Firmino, who shone alongside Salah in recent years.
Mané averaged a shot conversion rate of 18.6% in the Premier League during his time at Anfield, while Firmino’s was 14.3%. Only Jota and Salah are averaging more than either of them this season.
That said,
when comparing Arsenal’s forwards, it’s interesting that none of them can match Jota or Salah for shot conversion percentage either, with Leandro Trossard leading the way with 17.8% (8 goals from 45 shots), but their high number of set-piece goals in particular has helped their xG overperformance.
As far as Man City are concerned,
Erling Haaland has a shot conversion rate of 19.6% (19 goals from 97 shots) but fellow forwards Julián Álvarez (8 goals from 86 shots – 9.3%) and Jérémy Doku (2 goals from 39 shots – 5.1%) are way down. Phil Foden’s 14 goals from 90 shots (15.6%) has been a big help for Pep Guardiola’s men, though.