How Liverpool used statistics to change Premier League transfers

Since the start of Jurgen Klopp’s reign, Liverpool have pioneered the use of statistics in Premier League football.

Thanks to scouting director Ian Graham and Klopp, Liverpool have created a way to return to the elite of European football.

Liverpool owner John Henry’s love of sports statistics has never been a secret.

Henry is featured in the 2011 film Moneyball, about how one of the poorest teams in Major League Baseball pioneered the use of statistics to build a team to challenge the New York Yankees.

With the wealthier, if not recently failed, Boston Red Sox, Henry brought the use of statistics to one of the greatest teams in the sport.

Throughout his business life, Henry has found a way to gain an edge over the competition.

He did it with Boston, he did the same with Liverpool.

Since taking over the club, he has spent years trying to make a similar formula work at Liverpool, through the tenure of various managers with little success.

In 2015, Cambridge graduate Ian Graham convinced Klopp there was another way to win.
By changing Klopp’s attitude, Graham changed the outlook in the Premier League.

One of his ideas was to put a goal value on potential signings and couple that with the opinions of scouts and the manager, while keeping his value in mind before making a signing.

Liverpool have built teams from both a tactical and squad point of view, with the best of both worlds, both statistics and a manager’s intuition.

Liverpool’s statistical takeover coincided with a statistical explosion in football.

Expected goals (xG), has now found its way onto mainstream football coverage.

Harvard graduate Will Spearman helped drill down into the details of the passes, such as their direction, weight and speed.

Spearman and Graham’s ideas include field control and the idea of ​​a team covering optimal areas of the field based on statistics.

One of the key proponents of pitch control was arguably Georginio Wijnaldum, who before signing for the Reds was a hard-working attacking midfielder.

He was transformed by Klopp and Co. in a box-to-box midfielder, probably with pitch control in mind.

That blend of statistical knowledge, highlighting Wijnaldum’s strengths based on his stats and the coaching ability of the likes of Pep Lijnders and Vitor Matos, was a winning combination.

It is an idea that has also translated beyond the change of personnel at the club.

Even last summer, after their move for Moises Caicedo fell through, technical director Jorg Schmadtke brought in the unknown Wataru Endo.

His subsequent success at Liverpool was no accident.

If you look at some of his stats from his last season in Stuttgart, there is a sea of ​​green in certain areas, especially in clearances and aerials won.

Liverpool signed him not with the idea of ​​turning him into a top player like Trent Alexander-Arnold, but for him to fill a gap, to break the game.

The idea was for him to do the dirty work and leave the fancy stuff to Alexis MacAllister. They used statistics to divide a role.

These ideas helped Liverpool climb the ladder of success.

For much of the Klopp era, they have only found competition in the form of serial stat-users Manchester City, who, unlike Liverpool, have a seemingly bottomless pit of transfer funds.

Brighton and Hove Albion have also implemented statistical analysis to sign a multitude of players which they have continued to sell for big money, but there is a glass ceiling.

Due to football’s current regulated financial hierarchy, they will never be able to have sustained success in Europe or at the top of the Premier League.

Liverpool can. The Reds had and have enough money and all the know-how to compete at the top.

Manchester United have all the money but no know-how.

We could all sit here and tell each other that Liverpool should have won more, but Klopp was right, Liverpool couldn’t have done more. Everything was optimal.