This has been bugging me for at least the last 3 years. The amount of games that Liverpool dominate in terms of creating goalscoring chances and yet do not win.
This season that includes losses to Arsenal, Man Disunited, Chelsea, Southampton, Portsmouth, Bolton (League Cup). I think in fact every loss this season we have had equal or more scoring shots than the oppostion. Even last night it was 20 chances to 8 and just a draw against Everton.
During our bad run last year where I think we went about 8-10 games without a win, all but one of them we had significantly more goal scoring chances than the oppostion. And I think from memory it was on average about 8 more chances per game, but NO wins.
Luck does not even out, that is an old wives tale. But the style of football that sees us create all these chances and basically outplay the opposition up to the point of putting the chances away is obviously (on paper) working. This is probably the one thing that keeps Houllier believing he will get it right.
The question then is why do we not pick up the extra 20 points a season our creation of chances has earned ? The clear answer is we do not put the chances away, and they are from a very general observation, as clear cut chances as any team. When you see the chances we miss, the saves made and the near misses from inside the penalty area they are very very good chances. Basically our finishing is not good enough.
Owen is NOT a natural goalscorer. He has loads of talent, pace, athleticism and generally a good football brain. But he is no Ian Rush at sniffing goals. Heskey is not a good converter(and is always exhausted when he gets the ball), Kewell has lost confidence, Gerard is average at best in finishing. Milan Baros is not far away but not there yet. Maybe it is lack of confidence that has engulfed the club over the last 3 years.
No one can say we do not create the chances. If you look at the statistical summaries of ALL those games mentioned we did have more chances than our opponents, and lost them all.
Where do you go from here ? Do you continue that style and get better finishers ? or do you chuck out the whole lot and start again ??
Steven O'Neil
Perth, Australia