After almost a year in charge, how much improvement, if any, has the German been responsible for?
An introductory look at how the media love-in with Klopp actually contrasts with the raw data thrown out by his reign so far.
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In
the light of recent media adulation of Klopp and his hyperactive
style of football, and having learned to think for myself a long time
ago, I decided to set about physically gauging what improvements he
has made to Liverpool, if any, since his appointment.
Now,
it's important you don't get me wrong from the outset here.
I
admire the affable German and like his and Liverpool's style of play
so far this season. The intensity and desire to play entertaining
football is to be lauded but that's not to say it's particularly
effective over long periods of time.
Of
course, his short time at the club so far does not afford us a sample
that considers what we could call a 'long' period of time but it does
give us a set to lay down some foundations now and then consider the
progress or lack of it come the end of the season.
With
this in mind, this article is only intended as a 'Part 1' of the
story and we will revisit it at the end of the season when we have
much more data to go off.
To
monitor how Klopp is doing, we must first establish exactly what it
was he inherited from his predecessor, Brendan Rodgers. That was, I
think we'd all agree, a team in transition as soon as Suarez left but
losing out on the title, which however unlikely looked theirs for the
taking, certainly played a part too.
All
of this data is incorporated to give an idea of how Liverpool
performed throughout their time with Rodgers in charge so as to give
us an accurate picture of what state the team were in when Klopp took
over.
If
we know what he inherited, it's then much easier to gauge whether he
has actually improved the side or not and whilst on displays this
season they look a more accomplished outfit, it's much more sensible
to base opinions over longer time frames.
The
excitement of the moment leads to snap judgements and subjectivity
whereas if we only look at the raw numbers as an indicator of
performance we get a much more objective view and also a better idea
of what the long term future may hold.
I
have attempted to explain the figures generated in regular places
throughout the article but if anything is unclear please don't
hesitate to contact me for clarification
Overall
performance since Rodgers first game
Let's
first look at the ultimate arbiter of football performance – goals
– or perhaps more precisely Liverpool ability to score more and
concede less than an average team.
The
chart below shows Liverpool's ability to do the above better than an
average team since Rodgers first game right through to Klopp's most
recent match.
Before
we talk about what this chart shows, let's take a look at the metric
it actually uses so as to make better sense of it.
The
ratings for goals are, in layman's terms, how many goals are
Liverpool better off than the average team in any given match. So if
the average team was expected to score 1 goal and Liverpool were
currently rating 0.5 on the chart above, we would expect them to
score 1.5 goals as their rating is 0.5 goals better than the average
side.
Makes
sense? I hope so but we'll come back to it.
It
should be noted there's a very bad start for Rodgers here but this
doesn't serve as a handicap as the rating is a cumulative average
over all the games meaning the early matches look obscure on the
chart but don't have a negative impact on the actual ratings that
we'll be comparing in the most part – Klopp's influence on the
side.
The
whole point of incorporating Rodgers entire reign into the stats is
to guard against this kind of issue and ensure we have a realistic
rating on which to start Klopp's reign further down the line.
So
what does this show?
Well
we see a tough start for Rodgers which is later catered for in the
chart as we see gradual progression, peaking in the latter stages of
Liverpool's close shave with the title.
Following
that disappointment, the loss of Suarez (would affect any team) and
the possible damage to chemistry caused by the resulting mass
recruitment drive, we see a gradual sloping off in their
effectiveness.
When
you consider only headlines, you may think Rodgers was underachieving
in the latter part of his reign. However, it's more likely he was a
victim of a freak season when they went close.
The
numbers for that season, and we don't look at it here but I can
present the work if anybody is interested, were simply not
sustainable with very high conversion ratios in terms of shots vs
goals. The more retentive of you may recall the season prior to their
title challenge when they were creating plenty of chances but missing
far too many and simply not scoring enough goals.
Like
the latter, the former could not last long term and I think it fair
to say that Liverpool were probably performing exactly as we'd have
expected them to, even as late as the latter stages of Rodgers reign.
When
we consider how much ridicule Rodgers attracted at his end and the
seemingly never-ending praise of Klopp since then, it would be easy
to imagine that the German had totally transformed the clubs
fortunes.
Whilst
it's arguable that the overall atmosphere around the club has changed
significantly since and the the German will need some time to make it
work for him, at this point the numbers don't really bare this out.
In
fact, if we consider the chart that follows we can see there has been
absolutely no improvement at all in their ability to win football
matches since the appointment of Klopp.
As
you can see here, Klopp inherited a team better at winning football
matches (scoring more and conceding less than the average team) than
the one he currently possesses almost a year on.
The
actual team goals rating in Klopp's first game was 0.661 (so
for every 1 goals the average team scored against them, Liverpool
would be expected to score 1.661 in reply) compared
to the rating 12 months later (for a
supposedly 'improved' team)
of 0.656.
So
after 12 months of Klopp, on the face of it Liverpool are now 0.005
of a goal worse at winning football matches and at the top end of
football with such small margins at play, a 1% deterioration in team
performance simply does not back up the current media love-in with
the German.
It
will certainly be interesting to see where the numbers lie come the
end of this season and as I mentioned previously, I will be going
back to this with new data at that time. You will find updates at
http://www.betfairguru.co
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you can subscribe to receive all updates and new content via email as
soon as it is published.
In
the meanwhile, there are of course other metrics which show the
development of a team but are possibly more open to variance. These
are things that we already touched upon, shots and shots on target.
Let's
see the chart for shot differential since Rodgers first game to begin
with, then we'll break it down for just games under Klopp to gauge
progress. We'll then repeat that process again for shots on target as
it could be we've been in a period of low conversion and are about to
see a period of high conversion, which with more games in the sample
would give a better rating to Klopp currently.
This
chart concurs somewhat with the goals chart up and to a point... the
point being when Klopp takes over which is when we see a gradual
improvement in shot differential – the creation of shots and
prevention of shots also.
This
would be explained by the change in style since his appointment and
that winning the ball back higher up the pitch and controlling the
game more will offer you more opportunities and your opponents fewer.
This contrasts with Rodgers efforts where Liverpool would be much
more reactionary, inviting teams out and scoring most of their goals
getting in behind teams with pace.
Let's
break down what happened since Klopp arrived to see this idea in
visual format
Of
course, there is every chance that this is just a regression to
what's expected and that Rodgers style was inviting too many shots
against the side rather than Klopp's Liverpool creating more.
All
of these things can be considered now but not really proved out
without a lot more data to look at. I also think it only fair to give
Klopp time to get the players that he wants playing the system that
he wants before judging too much. In his early reign he was lumbered
with a dysfunctional squad, little in the way of depth and low on
confidence so over time I would have expected improvement anyway, the
only question is how much.
On
the face of it though, Liverpool are now around 0.5 of a shot better
off per game, which in turn should equals a better goal rating over
his time in charge. However, as we've already seen, that's now what
is happening so what is the explanation?
We
should consider what kind of shots these are since a wild hack from
85 yards in the vague direction of the goal can be labelled a shot.
Let's look at Shots on Target ratings, first throughout the entire
measured spell (Rodgers first game
onwards) and
then look at what happened since Klopp arrived.
As
expected, this cart also mirrors the others we've already seen with a
drop in performance since the peak of their title challenge. This
would suggest that Liverpool's style of play was pretty consistent
throughout Rodgers reign and the goal shortage, followed by a goal
glut were most likely just extremes of variance.
What
you may note is that the rating is still falling even towards the end
of the chart so let's look at what happened explicitly since Klopp
arrived.
It
would seem that, whilst they are gradually improving the amount of
shooting opportunities they have, they are not necessarily good
opportunities. In fairness, the drop has been small from 2.79 to 2.65
but if you listen to the media, Liverpool are now all of a sudden a
free-scoring side under Klopp creating lots of opportunities in the
opponents final third.
The
truth of it is that since he took over, according to the raw data we
have at the moment, they are worse at the variables that directly
determine whether or not you win football matches than they were
under Rodgers, even in his last games in charge where the perception
was that he'd totally lost the plot.
Now,
at this point it's easy to question what the German has brought to
the party but, as I said previously, I am a huge fan of his
refreshing brand of honesty and exciting style of football and have
no doubts at all that it will ultimately prove successful. In fact, I
am looking forward to coming back to this at the end of the season
and using Part 1 as a case study example of why you should not place
too much trust in short-term data sets.
Now
I'm one that's all for fairness and I know that an easy argument
could be that we didn't look at the league in it's entirety. Maybe
these figures drop off across the entire league and not just
Liverpool under Klopp.
However,
the way the ratings are calculated means that this is already
factored into the rating. So if the entire league dropped off, it
would just show as stagnation on the Klopp chart, it wouldn't show as
a drop or a rise.
The
only time we get rises or drops in rating are when the team is
performing better or worse than the average team over a the same time
period.
I
haven't considered such metrics as Possession and distance covered
since I don't believe they bear much effect on winning football
matches. If they did consider these, and conventional belief is that
both of these things have improved under Klopp, we can confidently
say they aren't helping Liverpool to win more football matches over
the current sample.
So
finally here we are at a point where we can post a provisional
conclusion with a view to revisiting it in 8 months time at the end
of the 2016-2017 football season. At that point, we will have a
better sample size of Klopp games but also a better sample size for
the rest of the league during the same period of time.
I
hope you enjoyed this brief guide and when I compile things like
this, I like to look a little beyond what usually counts for
“analysis” in modern-day lazy journalism.
Most
of the time they just look at points won over the same sample or win%
compared to the previous manager but this is far too simplistic as it
gives no attention to who the opponents were during the same time
frame.
Whilst
extremes of form are temporary, team strength is quite organic and
changes very slowly over long periods of time. Given what we have
seen so far, it may look exciting and you'll get the odd goal-fest
but there's been no improvement at all, perhaps the team even went
backwards over this time.
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you wish to receive the follow-up to this at seasons end, just
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With
the season due to end on 21st May 2017, I'd expect the next part to be released towards the end of
May 2017, possibly the first week of June. In the meanwhile, there'll
be a lot more projects like this for you to enjoy and my most popular
that I've had to date was my Euro 2016 Project which you can download
directly from the website.
