stmichael wrote:To be honest, despite conceding more sloppy goals than in previous seasons, the defence is the least of our problems imo (as long as Dossena doesn't play).
Our attack is chronic at times which just puts more pressure on the lads at the back.
Goals Conceded After 26 Premiership Games
04/05 : 27
05/06 : 17
06/07 : 17
07/08 : 19
08/09 : 18
Pretty consistent, unfortunately still not getting us any closer to the league title. And our defence is doing pretty much the same as the last three seasons so I'm not sure Pellegrino is doing any worse a job than was done before. And just for comparison, before Rafa :-
99/00 : 22
00/01 : 28
01/02 : 24
02/03 : 25
03/04 : 29
Goes to show our defence is conceding less, although still leaking too many goals for my liking. We've conceded 18 this season, the mancs only 11 so far. Our defence may concede less than a goal a game, but how many chances do we give the opposition that they don't take?
I'm not a big fan of Skrtel, no attacking threat, to ready to lunge in and give away silly free-kicks from which we're vulnerable, and I'd rather have Agger in the side.
But I'm more worried about goalscoring, we've scored 70+ only twice in the Premiership and our 67 last season in the Premiership was the highest since 01/02 - still not enough though. If you score two in a game, your defence would have to be poor for you to lose (Pompey!)
I've done this stat before, but I think it is telling nonetheless
Premiership Goals Scored (Liverpool 08/09)
0 goals : P5 W0 D5 L0 PTS 5
1 goal : P8 W3 D4 L1 PTS 13
2 goals : P6 W5 D1 L0 PTS 16
3+ goals : P7 W7 D0 L0 PTS 21
So we've dropped just two points out of 33 when we've scored two goals or more, we've dropped 21 out of 39 when scoring one or less. And to show how the Champions break down on the same stat
Premiership Goals Scored (Man Utd 07/08)
0 goals : P3 W0 D2 L1 PTS 2
1 goal : P13 W7 D3 L3 PTS 24
2 goals : P11 W9 D2 L0 PTS 29
3+ goals : P11 W11 D0 L0 PTS 33
So the mancs dropped just two points as well, but out of 66, when scoring two goals or more, they dropped 22 out of 48 when scoring one or less. They do win more 1-0, but the key is they score more goals (80 last season) and therefore win titles through winning more games as a consequence. We've already failed to score in five games, more than the mancs did all last season, and we're around 2/3 of the way through the season. You can't do much about 2-2 draws and not always 1-1, but :-
"the more goals your side can score, the less likely you are to lose or draw"
