Liverpool FC Forum

by **bigmick** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:34 pm

I just googled it, (go me) and after 25 games last season the Mancs had 58 points. After 25 games Arsenal had 60 points, and Chelsea had 54 points. We had 43 after 24 games, and Aston Villa 41 after 25 games.

Now judging by that, the comparisons as I see them are:

The Mancs are 56 points after 24 matches. So despite going on a fantastic run and winning game after game on the bounce, they would still only be one point ahead of last years total should they win their game in hand. Just goes to show that them falling out of the blocks wasn't an optical illusion, they did.

Arsenal have 44 points after 25 matches, 16 points less than at the same stage last season. It's been a poor effort by Wengers men, and I suppose they would claim that losing Hleb and Flamini to enforced transfers, as well as Rosicky and that little striker bloke to injury, as well as fabregas has hindered them. Maybe, but it does look like they are weaker than they were last season after all.

Chelsea have 49 points from 25 matches. It was around this stage last season that they delayed gazelled and started winning every week. They ran on past us and past Arsenal to take the Mancs into a photo. They are currently five points back from where they were before that run even started, so once again they don't appear to be as good a side.

We have 54 points from 25 games. If we assume we would have won our 25th game last season, we are 7 points better than we would have been then, which is an excellent effort. Last season at the same stage, we would still have been fourth funnily enough, as Arsenal, the Mancs and Chelsea would have been ahead of us. We're not in last season though, we're in this (thankfully) so it's a very good effort which is getting rewarded in terms of league position.

Aston Villa are 51 points after 25 games. They are 10 points better off than they were last season, which is also an excellent effort. Curiously, their position relative to us hasn't really changed that much from the same stage last season. Last season we managed to pull clear of them so hopefully we will this time too.

My conclusuion is that both us and Aston Villa have improved some. Thier improvement is largely due to them buying a couple of new players I think, ours is largely due top our excellent first dozen games or so. We must have been doing something different in those first 12 matches to what we'd done previously, but we can only speculate as to what it was.

The other inescapable conclusion is that both Chelsea and Arsenal aren't as good a team as they were last season, or historically. Man Utd appear to be roughly the same, and I think they are gearing up now for the push for home and lots of consecutive victories.

Interesting though when you look at it.

by **GYBS** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 9:03 pm

Yeah it is very interesting mick and shows how well in the league we have improved .

by **Madmax** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 9:06 pm

Also this season ronaldo is not on fire compared to how he was last season.. Shows thier strength....

by **Owzat** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:00 am

It is a bit of a false picture though, because of the order games fall in. There are two ways to compare seasons, after X games of each or by comparing the corresponding games. There is of course the possibility that a bad spell isn't going to occur at the same time in two consecutive seasons so we may still be awaiting our's................

After 25 games

2008/09 P25 W15 D9 L1 F42 A17 PTS 54
2006/07 P25 W15 D4 L6 F39 A17 PTS 49
2007/08 P25 W11 D11 L3 F40 A17 PTS 44

So on face value, we're better by 10 points on last season but only by two on goals scored. Games we had lost last season at this stage were mancs (home), West Ham and Reading (away) - we have yet to play at Upton Park this season. BUT we're just five points better off than in 06/07 and that didn't finish well - just 19 points from the remaining 13 games. Shows how important wins are since we'd lost more games in 06/07 at this stage than the other two combined.

Notice a difference of only three goals scored and no difference in goals against over all three seasons. Amazingly we only conceded 17 in 05/06 after 25 games, 31 goals scored though, so we've conceded 17 goals after 25 games in each of the last four seasons including this!

If you compare the corresponding fixtures, those that were possible and the rest for good measure separately - I've excluded 06/07 or it gets too messy

Corresponding Fixtures

2007/08 P21 W13 D7 L1 F36 A10 PTS 46
2008/09 P21 W14 D6 L1 F37 A15 PTS 48

And in the games that don't have corresponding fixtures

2007/08 P6 W3 D2 L1 F13 A7 PTS 11
2008/09 P4 W1 D3 L0 F5 A2 PTS 7

So in real terms we're two points better off in the corresponding fixtures compared to ten points if you deem the tallies after 25 games the way to judge. We'd have to win both games away at Hull and WBA to best the tally in the non-corresponding fixtures which is probable but not guaranteed. Just goes to show that comparing seasons is a good idea, but you're better off using two or more means of comparison when one of the seasons is incomplete. Same goes for comparisons with Man Utd last season, is it one point better off this season (?) and yet did it occur to anyone that they dropped three points to us that they gained at Anfield last season? ie they may be "only" one point better off, but that's without the win at Anfield

I'm not trying to prove we're worse off than last season, simply trying to get people to see there are more ways than one of looking at the same thing - especially when one picture is only 2/3 complete. It also has to be noted that most of the comparisons are between Liverpool last season and Liverpool this, we need to do better than Man Utd and the rest THIS SEASON so we're playing catch up in that regard no matter whether we're (playing) better than last season, the same, or worse.

And here's the biggy in terms of stats, our run in last season : P13 W10 D2 L1 F27 A11 PTS 32. We have to play :

Home : ARSENAL (5), Tottenham (15), Man City (9), ASTON VILLA (3), Newcastle (13), Blackburn (18), Sunderland (11)
Away : MAN UTD (1), West Ham (8), Middlesboro (19), Hull (12), West Brom (20), Fulham (10)

CAPS indicate top six sides, current league position in brackets.

There are some pretty testing away days in there and one or two of our visitors won't be easy to beat. Let's face it, 32 points from our last 13 games would put us on 87 points which would be considered a title bid in my opinion. Doing it is the key, I can see us dropping points in more than three of those games though. Even if we win all seven home games we'd need to win three away, so we're facing winning at least three away wins to match the 10 wins in our run in last season.

Also, some of those sides we have to play away have decent home records

Home Records 08/09

01. MAN UTD P11 W10 D1 L0 F25 A4 PTS 31
02. LIVERPOOL P12 W7 D5 L0 F25 A4 PTS 26
12. Fulham P11 W7 D3 L1 F19 A9 PTS 24
08. West Ham P13 W6 D1 L6 F18 A17 PTS 19
20. West Brom P13 W5 D2 L6 F18 A24 PTS 17
19. Middlesboro P12 W3 D5 L4 F10 A15 PTS 14
12. Hull P12 W3 D3 L6 F13 A25 PTS 12

Away Records 08/09

03. ASTON VILLA P13 W10 D0 L3 F23 A10 PTS 30
02. LIVERPOOL P13 W8 D4 L1 F16 A6 PTS 28
05 ARSENAL P13 W5 D5 L3 F20 A14 PTS 20
11 Sunderland P12 W3 D4 L5 F12 A18 PTS 13
18 Blackburn P11 W2 D4 L5 F12 A19 PTS 10
13 Newcastle P13 W2 D4 L7 F14 A22 PTS 10
15 Tottenham P12 W2 D2 L8 F15 A22 PTS 8
09 Man City P11 W1 D4 L6 F14 A20 PTS 7

Blackburn are in deep sh1 te, they've only six home games left and won only three games there. We should win quite a few games, most of the home games. That said we didn't beat Stoke at home and they've drawn just three of their 13 away games in the league this season. villa may not be the home win we might normally expect, amazingly they have the best away record in the Premiership. The REALLY bad news is the mancs have EIGHT home games to come and have dropped just two points there all season - they do have us and Arsenal to visit, we can only hope both sides come away with three points and then who knows?

villa have been suggested as a possible threat to us, or as title contenders. We'll find out fairly sharpish :-

21/02 Aston Villa vs Chelsea
04/03 Man City vs Aston Villa
22/03 Liverpool vs Aston Villa
04/04 Man Utd vs Aston Villa

Four games that could put Arsenal back in the hunt for a top four finish, they will also have to cope with the demands put on their squad when the UEFA Cup resumes

by **lewerty** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 11:56 am

but also torres has been injured for us too

by **heimdall** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 12:52 pm

Owzat wrote:Blackburn are in deep sh1 te, they've only six home games left and won only three games there. We should win quite a few games, most of the home games. That said we didn't beat Stoke at home and they've drawn just three of their 13 away games in the league this season. villa may not be the home win we might normally expect, amazingly they have the best away record in the Premiership. The REALLY bad news is the mancs have EIGHT home games to come and have dropped just two points there all season - they do have us and Arsenal to visit, we can only hope both sides come away with three points and then who knows?

villa have been suggested as a possible threat to us, or as title contenders. We'll find out fairly sharpish :-

21/02 Aston Villa vs Chelsea
04/03 Man City vs Aston Villa
22/03 Liverpool vs Aston Villa
04/04 Man Utd vs Aston Villa

Four games that could put Arsenal back in the hunt for a top four finish, they will also have to cope with the demands put on their squad when the UEFA Cup resumes

Excellent post, thanks. :bowdown

Do you actually sit and work out all this sh1t for yourself or grab it off some website?

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