All people has an opinion, particularly in relation to Liverpool. The defending Premier League champions have misplaced 5 of six in league play to fall to eighth within the desk, and so they’ve misplaced seven of 10 in all competitions.
Mohamed Salah is immediately wanting his age, costly signing Florian Wirtz is not producing and costly signing Alexander Isak has struggled with each health and ending, the Premier League could be evolving extra shortly than supervisor Arne Slot, the customary players-only assembly did not appear to perform a lot, and there are many indicators that gamers are nonetheless grieving and battling the summer season demise of teammate Diogo Jota.
It virtually looks as if regression is inevitable at instances. Manchester Metropolis collapsed for a lot of the winter final season after profitable the league in 2023-24, and following Liverpool’s finest seasons below Jurgen Klopp, that they had loads of bumpy patches: two wins in seven, one in seven and two in eight in 2020-21 (after profitable the Premier League) and one win in seven and 0 in 5 in 2022-23 (after almost profitable the Treble). However with wrestle comes a refrain of well-known former gamers. It is “disaster time,” per Roy Keane. It is “disaster mode,” per Jamie Carragher. They do not have management, per Wayne Rooney. The toxicity of the scenario can turn out to be all-consuming. All the things is unhealthy, nothing is working, nothing is salvageable.
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Here is the place stats can supply some readability. What’s really going unsuitable — or not less than, most unsuitable — at Anfield? What do Slot and Liverpool must most urgently tackle to steer out of the skid? And whereas we’re right here, what do stats say about a few of Europe’s different struggling squads?
Let’s discover out.
Liverpool
Present Premier League standing: eighth (1.64 factors per recreation, down from 2.21 final season)
Largest statistical weak spot: protection. It is all the time been in regards to the protection. To make certain, the assault has regressed regardless of Liverpool spending a whole lot of thousands and thousands of kilos on a few of the brightest attacking expertise on the planet. They had been comfortably first in targets scored and xG created final season, and now they’re sixth in each classes. However they’re ninth in xG allowed (13.9) and twelfth in precise targets allowed (17), and that is what most wants addressing.
From a strain standpoint, Liverpool are hitting the identical notes as final season. They rank sixth within the league in passes allowed per defensive motion, second in mixed progressive passes and progressive carries allowed and third in excessive turnovers compelled; final 12 months they had been fourth, third and sixth, respectively. However they’re bombing in two classes: transition protection and set items. They had been fourth in xG allowed from counterattacks final season, and so they’re at present seventeenth, permitting 87% extra per match.
Maybe predictably, they’ve fallen from third to eighth in xG allowed per shot. In the meantime, after permitting simply 9 targets from set items final season (eighth within the league), they’ve already allowed a stunning seven this season (18th), together with three from lengthy throws.
Mix that with a downturn in goalkeeper efficiency. When it comes to targets prevented* they’ve gone from +0.10 per match from Alisson and Caoimhín Kelleher final season to -0.26 per match from Alisson and Giorgi Mamardashvili this season — and also you get a fairly clear image. Liverpool have allowed not less than two targets in seven of 11 league matches, and whereas they received the primary two such matches with late heroics, they’ve misplaced the previous 5.
Once they permit one or fewer targets, they’re an ideal 4-for-4 within the wins division. However they’ve managed to take action solely 4 instances.
(*Objectives prevented is a StatsPerform measure that compares the postshot xG worth of your opponents’ pictures on track to the variety of precise targets you permit.)
1:59
Nicol: Arne Slot ought to bench Mohamed Salah
Steve Nicol explains why he thinks Liverpool’s Arne Slot ought to bench Mohamed Salah.
Critiques in regards to the assault have all the time been appropriate to some extent. Salah has solely 4 targets (three, minus one penalty) and two assists in 11 league matches when, on the similar time final season, he had eight and 6, respectively. In the meantime, each Isak and Wirtz have been cursed by the xG gods. Wirtz has tried pictures price 1.3 anticipated targets and accomplished passes price 1.2 anticipated assists however has zero precise targets or assists, whereas Isak, managing solely 253 league minutes to this point, has tried pictures price 0.9 xG with no targets.
That half will change. However Liverpool’s protection is extra of a structural drawback.
Present LaLiga standing: second (2.33 factors per recreation, up from 2.32)
Largest statistical weak spot: continuity. Of the 9 groups on this piece, eight have regressed by way of home factors per play. Barcelona are literally doing simply high quality in that regard — they’re on the identical tempo as final season, after they received LaLiga. Their Champions League kind has been dented by a loss to Paris Saint-Germain and a wild 3-3 draw at Membership Brugge, however their fundamental drawback domestically has been the truth that Actual Madrid seem to have improved fairly a bit: After netting 84 factors final season, Barca’s hated rivals are on tempo for 98. That may definitely dampen the vibes.
You already know what else will? Accidents.
Lamine Yamal (second in final 12 months’s Ballon d’Or voting) performed 83.7% of Barca’s LaLiga minutes final season and is at 58.6% in 2025-26. Raphinha (fifth), in the meantime, has gone from 83.2% to 35.6%, and Robert Lewandowski (seventeenth) has gone from 78.4% to 41.6%. These three had been unreal final season, combining for 89 targets and 44 assists in all competitions. About one-third of the best way via 2025-26, they’re at 16 and 7, respectively. Gamers like Fermín López (six targets and 4 assists), Ferran Torres (seven and one) and loanee Marcus Rashford (six and 7) have held issues down, however Barca’s assault has gone from otherworldly to merely excellent.
1:49
Yamal scenario ‘playground stuff’ from Barcelona and Spanish FA
Julien Lauren believes the Lamine Yamal scenario might be “simply found out” if each Barcelona and the Spanish FA “converse to one another” to type it out.
In a roundabout means, possibly that is encouraging. Barca are hitting comparable notes as final season regardless of a complete lack of continuity up entrance. For that matter, they’ve gotten fewer minutes from injury-prone midfielders Pedri and Gavi as properly, and after seven gamers performed not less than 70% of league minutes final season, they’re at solely 5 to this point this 12 months.
After all, Actual Madrid have suffered their very own damage points and are nonetheless setting the next bar; Barca aren’t maintaining. And whereas home opponents have not been capable of alter notably properly to Hansi Flick’s excessive defensive position of their second 12 months of publicity to it, it has been a difficulty within the Champions League, the place they’re thirtieth out of 36 groups in xG allowed per shot, twenty second in xG allowed from counterattacks and 18th in targets allowed.
Nonetheless, getting and conserving the correct personnel on the pitch would assist immensely. Sadly, that is one thing over which you do not have a ton of management.
Present Premier League standing: 14th (1.09 factors per recreation, down from 1.74)
Largest statistical weak spot: targets. A reasonably essential stat. Newcastle play a extra direct fashion than most of England’s richest golf equipment, and it has usually served them fairly properly. If finished properly, you will not try as many pictures as your possession-hungry friends, however you will try as many or extra good pictures. Newcastle averaged 2.4 pictures per recreation price not less than 0.2 xG; solely Liverpool averaged extra. They tried 26.9% of their pictures with fewer than two defenders between the ball and objective, lowest within the league.
This season, following a well-publicized and stretched-out divorce with Isak, they added forwards Nick Woltemade and Yoane Wissa earlier than the switch deadline. Woltemade has had some vibrant, artistic moments, scoring six targets in all competitions (excess of Isak, if nothing else). However he is averaging 1.6 pictures per 90 minutes in all competitions — dreadfully low for a middle ahead — and Wissa has but to play due to damage. Consequently, regardless of stable work from left-sided attackers Anthony Gordon and Harvey Barnes (eight targets and three assists in all comps), Newcastle’s assault has disappeared.
When your attacking numbers are far nearer to West Ham’s than Arsenal’s, one thing has gone awry. Newcastle have scored simply 11 targets in league play (seventeenth), and whereas they’ve most likely been aware about some unhealthy ending luck, they’re simply twelfth in xG created, too. They’re averaging simply 1.5 pictures per recreation price not less than 0.2 xG (tenth), and solely 20% of their pictures have been tried with fewer than two defenders in the best way (tenth). Regardless of their tried directness, they’re permitting extra counterattacking alternatives than they’re creating.
Accidents are enjoying a task right here — solely 4 gamers have seen the pitch for greater than 71% of Newcastle’s league minutes, and 21 have began not less than as soon as. However accidents are enjoying a task for many groups, and Newcastle are at present far nearer to the relegation zone (two factors above) than they’re to a spot within the high 5 (six factors behind).
Except the assault peps up a bit, making up floor will likely be awfully tough.
Present Serie A standing: sixth (1.73 factors per recreation, down from 1.84)
Largest statistical weak spot: shot high quality. Like loads of fired managers, Igor Tudor was finished in not less than a bit by some unhealthy bounces. In his final 4 matches in cost at Juventus, towards a stable run of opponents (AC Milan, Como, Actual Madrid and Lazio), his prices allowed simply 4 targets. However they scored zero regardless of creating pictures price 4.4 xG. Whereas they most likely deserved 4 or 5 factors from these matches, they managed solely a 0-0 draw with Milan.
Of their first 4 matches with out Tudor — one with interim Massimo Brambilla, three with new rent Luciano Spalletti — each the schedule and the xG gods eased up. Towards Udinese, Cremonese, Sporting CP and Torino, Juve scored six targets and managed two wins and two attracts. However they nonetheless suffered from poor ending — these six targets got here from pictures price 7.9 xG — and their shot high quality nonetheless lacked a bit. For the season they rank simply sixteenth in Serie A in xG per shot (0.12).
Forwards Dusan Vlahovic, Jonathan David and Loïs Openda, who’re paid thousands and thousands of euros to place the ball within the internet, are trying simply 3.5 pictures per 90 minutes between them, and even worse, they’re averaging simply 0.11 xG per shot. Juve’s artistic gamers — primarily Kenan Yildiz and Andrea Cambiaso — haven’t been capable of get them concerned, and with simply 4 targets from their 5.7 mixed xG, they have not completed the alternatives they’ve gotten both.
Juve are in respectable form total: Thanks primarily to wins over lower-rung opponents, they’re solely three factors outdoors Serie A’s high 4. The early indicators below Spalletti have been encouraging, however till their scorers each earn and end higher scoring alternatives, climbing the desk will likely be tough.
Present LaLiga standing: eighth (1.42 factors per recreation, down from 1.84)
Largest statistical weak spot: defensive regression to the imply. They play a dependable fashion of ball in Bilbao: Defend first, defend second, defend third, and possibly rating a objective on the counter in some unspecified time in the future. They have not allowed greater than 50 targets in a LaLiga season since 2012-13, and so they’ve allowed below 40 in 4 of the final six years.
Final season, nonetheless, they had been slightly too good on this regard. Giving up simply 29 targets in 38 matches allowed them to complete fourth and earn their first Champions League bid in 11 seasons. However these 0.76 targets per match (first within the league) got here from a mean of 1.01 xG (second); even by the requirements of Athletic and goalkeeper Unai Simón, that is an excessive amount of of a disparity. And positive sufficient, the xG gods have come for what they’re owed this 12 months. They’re permitting decrease total shot high quality — 0.85 xG per match (first) — however opponents are turning that into 1.1 targets (fifth).
The assault, in the meantime, has been beset by accidents. Main attackers Iñaki Williams (solely 62.7% of minutes this season), Nico Williams (49.7%) and Oihan Sancet (39.5%) aren’t seeing a lot of the pitch, and Athletic have scored simply 4 open-play targets in 12 league matches. They’re seventh within the league, already eight factors off the top-four tempo, and Champions League play hasn’t gone any higher. They beat Qarabag however have misplaced three different matches by a mixed 8-1.
Randomness is not fixable, sadly, and in the event that they proceed defending properly, their league kind ought to stabilize. However a return to the Champions League subsequent season is wanting unlikely.
Present Serie A standing: thirteenth (1.18 factors per recreation, down from 1.95)
Largest statistical weak spot: absolute offensive stagnation. Changing Roma-bound Gian Piero Gasperini was all the time going to be a tall process. Along with his swashbuckling attacking identification, his Atalanta groups overachieved towards their spending numbers for a lot of instances in current seasons, and supervisor Ivan Juric got here into the job with a excessive bar to clear. That Atalanta have misplaced solely three of their 15 matches in all competitions definitely suggests issues might be going worse, however settling for an unbelievable eight attracts in that span held them again, and two of these three losses got here within the first 9 days of November. On the tenth day, Juric was fired.
Juric’s Atalanta matched Gasperini’s shot quantity — they had been fifth in Serie A in pictures per possession final season, and so they’re fifth once more this 12 months — however the good pictures have vanished. They’ve fallen from third to twelfth in xG per shot. Decrease shot high quality can produce streakiness, and of their previous eight matches in all competitions they’ve managed simply 4 targets from pictures price 11.2 xG. Take Lazar Samardzic‘s two targets out of the equation, and everybody else has two targets from 10.6 xG.
That’s, in fact, unsustainably horrible, and new rent Raffaele Palladino, most lately of Fiorentina, will doubtless take pleasure in a new-manager bump merely due to development towards the imply. However as with Juve, shot high quality desperately wants to enhance, and in contrast to Juve, they’re now 9 factors off the top-four tempo.
Present Premier League standing: nineteenth (0.82 factors per recreation, down from 1.71)
Largest statistical weak spot: set items and no margin for error. full-season stats for a group that has already careened from a profitable counterattacking supervisor (Nuno Espirito Santo) to a possession-and-pressing man (Ange Postecoglou) again to a counterattacker (Sean Dyche) might be a idiot’s errand, and it is most likely not stunning to study that taking a look at Forest’s full-season numbers supply us virtually no trace of favor or high quality.
That mentioned, set items have been a rampant drawback this season, and so they have not improved to this point in Dyche’s brief tenure. They had been a life hack for Forest’s rousing seventh-place end (and Champions League near-qualification) final season — they scored 17 set-piece targets (first) and produced a +8 scoring margin from them (third). This season, they’ve scored simply two set piece targets (seventeenth) and allowed 9 (twentieth) for a minus-7 margin (additionally twentieth).
1:03
Dyche annoyed at lack of VAR intervention vs. Man United
Sean Dyche reacts to Nottingham Forest’s 2-2 draw vs. Manchester United within the Premier League.
In Dyche’s three league matches, they’re considered one of solely seven groups to attain zero instances, and so they’ve allowed three, together with each targets in a 2-2 draw with Manchester United. The easy incontrovertible fact that they’ve earned 4 factors and scored 5 targets suggests stable enchancment below Dyche, however this facet continues to be dragging them down, and so they nonetheless have the second-fewest factors within the league — behind even Nuno’s new group, a beforehand hapless West Ham.
Present Bundesliga standing: seventeenth (0.50 factors per recreation, down from 1.53)
Largest statistical weak spot: a complete lack of shot makes an attempt. With the endlessly enthusiastic Bo Henriksen in cost, Mainz had been the Bundesliga’s Nottingham Forest, positioned for a stunning Champions League berth final season till fading late. Like Athletic Membership, they received so far as they did partly attributable to success on protection — they had been tenth in xG allowed (1.46 per recreation) however third in targets allowed (1.26) — and that allowed them to get by with an assault that was barely above common at finest. The protection has regressed slightly (1.59 xG allowed), however the fortune has fully vanished (1.80 targets allowed).
You may get by within the Bundesliga with a mediocre protection, but it surely definitely exposes your assault. With out Eintracht Frankfurt-bound Jonathan Burkardt (18 targets from pictures price 14.8 xG final season), and with predictable regression to the imply from Paul Nebel (10 targets from 5.8 xG final 12 months, one from 1.4 this 12 months), Mainz are creating virtually nothing on the attacking finish. They’re final within the league in pictures per possession (0.08), and regardless of enjoying a fairly direct fashion, they’ve tried solely 14.5% of their pictures with fewer than two defenders between the ball and objective (second worst).
Granted, this is not extremely completely different from final season, after they ranked seventeenth in pictures per possession. However now neither the protection nor Nebel is overachieving.
With an xG differential that ranks eleventh within the league, they’re more likely to ultimately transfer up the desk transferring ahead. Regardless of sharing the bottom level complete within the league with Heidenheim, present Opta projections give them solely a 13% probability of ending in an computerized relegation spot. However success lined up some weaknesses final 12 months, and that fortune is properly gone.
Fiorentina
Present Serie A standing: twentieth (0.45 factors per recreation, down from 1.71)
Largest statistical weak spot: ending (and set items). Cease me in the event you’ve heard this one earlier than. A group that seemingly overachieved within the desk final season is not getting the identical breaks this time round.
Fiorentina completed sixth in Serie A in 2024-25, their finest league marketing campaign in 9 years, however they did it with an unsustainably good run of ending: They scored 60 targets from pictures price solely 49.7 xG, a 21% overachievement. Essential creatives like left again Robin Gosens and midfielders Yacine Adli and Rolando Mandragora received in on the goal-scoring act slightly too properly, scoring 13 targets from pictures price 5.5 xG.
This season, with Adli off to Al Shabab, Mandragora and Gosens have scored a way more regular three targets from 2.7 xG, however the group’s total ending has vanished. Fiorentina have generated 15.5 xG (fifth) — they’re first within the league in xG per shot! — however have scored simply 9 targets (14th), a 42% underachievement. Star middle ahead Moise Kean is enduring an unbelievable hunch, with two targets from pictures price 5.7 xG, and Fiorentina have endured a pair of 0-0 attracts, a 1-1 draw, a 1-0 loss and three 2-1 losses. In a type of attracts, towards Torino, Kean by some means missed a tap-in header price 0.98 xG.
Like Forest, Fiorentina have additionally collapsed within the set items division: They allowed seven set piece targets final season and have already matched that in 2025-26. Their underlying numbers are stable sufficient that they most likely aren’t a real menace for relegation — Opta places their odds at solely 15% — however worse fortune, worse ending and worse set piece protection have all however relegated them from a shot at one other European competitors subsequent season.
