I hadn’t thought much of that record, until I saw this picture from Optajoe, which illustrated just how costly finding the woodwork had been for Liverpool this season.

For the second season running, if every woodwork hit was a goal, then Liverpool would have finished fourth in the league. What with this, and referees costing the Reds ten points through incorrect decisions this season, it feels like Brendan Rodgers has his work cut out even more than we thought!

I try not to make excuses for bad results wherever possible, but I think this information suggests that Liverpool aren’t that far away from where they want to be. Using the data in the aforementioned Optajoe picture, plus the regular league table, I have been able to compile a table of how each team’s results was affected by woodwork hits (though of course, it does assume that every match would have been otherwise unaffected aside from the extra goals, which they clearly would not have been), and how many hits each team had for and against.

Liverpool’s poor finishing/bad luck (delete as applicable) cost them fourteen points in 2012/13, which was as many as the next two most affected teams put together.

Seven draws (including four of the Reds’ five 0-0s) perhaps should have been won, but for a lack of better finishing from Suárez and co. For instance, Stoke City managed to snaffle a goalless draw away from Anfield in September, yet Skrtel, Sterling and Suárez all managed to find the frame of the goal in the match, so the Reds were surely unlucky not to win.

It’s no surprise either to see that the Reds’ opponents had the fewest frame rattlers, as Liverpool gave away fewer shots in the box than every other Premier League side, so did well at limiting the close range opportunities that are more likely to lead to woodwork strikes.

Obviously the above numbers don’t change anything, but it struck me as interesting that the frame of the goal has cost Liverpool a crack at the Champions League for the second year running. Fingers crossed for next year, Reds!

Related posts you might like:

Woodwork Woes, And What-If’s – Whilst it’s well known that Liverpool have hit the post or bar a lot this season, which games has it really mattered in?

Liverpool FC 2011/12 In Stats: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly – An end of season round-up of the facts and figures behind Liverpool’s Premier League campaign.

Please check out my other articles, and follow me on Twitter or via Facebook. Thanks.

I’ll write an in depth review of the season in due course, but for now I thought it was worth highlighting that the Reds have improved in the league by a greater proportion than any other side.

Of course, this doesn’t take account of a multitude of other factors such as net transfer spend, but until I have time to do an in-depth review, I thought these figures were interesting enough to share for now.

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Thanks, Carra.

The bad news is, it is still not any better, and at the business end of the season, the cost of the errors by refs is looking increasingly expensive.

Using the information on the Debatable Decisions website, where a panel review the major decisions by referees in every Premier League match, I have compiled the figures for the seventeen teams who have been in the top flight for the last two seasons to see who the men in black have favoured over the previous sixty-eight matches.

Liverpool are at the bottom of the table, and their treatment from referees is almost twice as bad as that suffered by Chelsea, the second most harshly treated club.

At the opposite end of the table, Stoke City have almost the identical record to the Reds, except in reverse. This is presumably down to a number of referees allowing them to get away with their alehouse bully-boy tactics.

If we look at the figures more closely, we can see that Liverpool get an incorrect call in their favour every 3.8 games; as each team listed here receives one every 3.7 games on average, the Reds don’t really have too much cause for complaint here.

However, by having a bad call go against them every 1.9 games (against a league total of one every 4.8), this means that Liverpool have been unfairly punished 60% more frequently than the average.

Debatable Decisions also provide the points difference that the incorrect decisions have had. It’s not a flawless system, as for instance it assumes that all penalties are scored, but it certainly provides a decent guide.

As you’d expect, the Reds are comfortably at the bottom of the table, with refs having cost them eleven points last season, and ten as at the 31st game in this campaign (which is the most recent info that Debatable Decisions have published).

Whilst Liverpool may have had some decisions go in their favour since then, if they did have ten more points this season, then they’d be going into Sunday’s final match of the season against Queens Park Rangers with an outside chance of finishing fourth. Brendan Rodgers would certainly have a lot more Reds fans on his side if that were the case.

But I think the key thing to take from the above table is this: over the last two seasons, Liverpool have lost one point every three games on average thanks to incorrect decisions by referees.

Think about that: a side which has averaged 4.4 points every three games across the last two seasons should really have earned 5.4 points per three matches, and that equates to 68 for a whole season, and enough to contest fourth place in the league.

However, whilst it’s unrealistic to expect every single decision in the Premier League to be correct, it would be nice to think that it evens itself out eventually.

For Arsenal, this has very much been the case; the Gunners were the only side to finish below Liverpool in the decisions table last season, and have been rewarded with the top of the table spot this time around, as the below table shows:

This gives Arsene Wenger’s men an average rank for the two seasons of 10.5. The further a team is from that figure, the less rebalancing they have enjoyed or suffered from last season to this.

No prizes for guessing which team is farthest away.

I’m not going to claim that there is any kind of conspiracy here, as down that road madness lies, but I’d like to think that Liverpool might get their deserved ten point boost in each of the next two seasons. Or even twenty bonus points next season, and we’ll call it quits?

Related articles you might like:

Blame Suárez - Liverpool’s striker is more harshly treated by refs than most entire teams are.

Who’s The Ref? – The Liverpool stats for various refs.

Ref Justice – A look at how the men in black have been treating the Reds.

Howard Webb, Penalties, and Manchester United – The stats suggest that Webb favours United over the other top English sides…

Please check out my other articles, and follow me on Twitter or via Facebook. Thanks.

If you believe what you read, then Ashley Williams of Brendan Rodgers’ former club Swansea City is the primary target, and looking at his stats on WhoScored, it’s easy to see why.

The Welsh international is ranked sixth in the Premier League for interceptions per game, fourth for clearances per game, and top for blocked shots per game; in many ways, he’s exactly what Liverpool are looking for.

But he wouldn’t be cheap; the Swans trousered £15m when Joe Allen moved to Anfield last season, and no doubt the Capital One Cup holders would look for a similar amount for Williams. I have therefore looked at the defensive stats for Europe’s big five leagues on WhoScored to try to find the Reds a bargain.

I set myself a couple of conditions: as Liverpool’s owners are known to favour a young side, all players who are older than Williams (who is 28) were excluded, and as there is always a British transfer premium when players change clubs within the Premier League, I have looked exclusively overseas as my aim is try to preserve the majority of the Reds’ transfer budget.

I then chose some key defensive statistics, and gave each player a score based on their percentage of the best figure in Europe for that attribute (so as a simple example, if the highest number of clearances per game was ten, then someone who averaged nine per game would get a score of 0.900, and so on).

I initially used tackles, interceptions, clearances and shots blocked figures to compile a top ten, and then added in aerial duel win percentage (as Liverpool have been very susceptible to crosses and target men this season) and short passing accuracy (as Brendan Rodgers likes his teams to play out from the back) to get the full total.

The table below shows the top ten centre backs in Europe, sorted by their total score as per the above criteria. The boxes in green highlight where a player has performed better than Williams.

For the record, Martin Skrtel is the Liverpool defender who would come closest to appearing on this chart, with a score of 3.873 this season. Clearly, improvements could potentially be made to the Reds’ rearguard if they purchased one or more of the above.

It appears that there are three defenders who, overall, have performed better than Williams this season, though of course it depends which of the above stats you consider the most important, as here they’re all equally weighted. It would seem that if you want your centre backs to tackle and win balls in the air, than the Swansea man wouldn’t be the best player to go for.

As a Brazilian, the top ranked Geromel would certainly give the Reds a ‘samba spine’ next season, with Lucas and Coutinho in front of him, and the stats suggest he would be a good acquisition. Interceptions are clearly the Mallorca man’s strength; with 4.1 per game on average, he has made more than every single other player in Europe’s top five leagues. For a ball-playing side like Liverpool, this ability could be invaluable.

I also thought it would be interesting to factor in the cost of each player, to try to ascertain the best value signing from the above footballers. I have used Transfermarkt‘s valuations of the players, then divided their performance score, to see who provides best pound-for-pound value.

Perhaps inevitably, this has simply put the players in reverse order of cost, but it does suggest that Ashley Williams is the worst value signing, and that’s when using a valuation of only £5.3m; it may be a realistic price based on his ability, but it’s not one that Swansea would accept for their captain this summer. Of the three players who have outperformed Williams this summer, it is Boye of Rennes who appears to be the best value.

At this point, an unsurprising confession; I haven’t seen these players play, and have no idea if they would be suited to the fairly unique demands of the Premier League, with it’s wet Wednesday nights in Stoke and alehouse tactics, or whether these men are slow, fast, fat or thin. I also realise this system of assessing players is still very limited, so any feedback would be most wecolme too.

But hopefully I’ve at least demonstrated that there may well be cheaper alternatives to Williams in Europe, who can perform to a similar level. If you’re reading Mr Henry, my research fee is a mere 5% of the transfer value….

Related posts you might like:

Replacing Reina – A look at which European keepers have a similar skillset to Pepe, in case he returns to Spain this summer.

Defenders Of Our Faith – A guest column by Andrew Fanko, who investigates the defensive records of Liverpool’s centre back pairings.

Liverpool Summer 2012 Transfer Review – My takes on the pros and cons of the ins and outs at Anfield.

Please check out my other articles, and follow me on Twitter or via Facebook. Thanks.