Like last year, a quick knock-up of Liverpool's schedule, looking at the fixture list by last season's league place rather than the team name.
•I'm sure you remember that Liverpool played three teams in the previous season's top four in the first five matches to begin Brendan Rodgers' Liverpool tenure.
Finally announced after "bureaucratic issues" (read: let's pay some more agents!) were settled, Celta Vigo's Iago Aspas is now a Liverpool player. Well, almost. There's still some "documentation to be completed." Modern football!
Anyway.
Iago Aspas took 102 shots in total in 34 league appearances last season (all starts), an average of three per match.
This image is massive. It's a timeline of all the matches played by Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard since their respective debuts in 1997 and 1998. Click on the cropped version below to open up the full image in a new window. You'll need to zoom in. And scroll. A lot. They've played a lot of matches.
Maybe it's the early signs of football withdrawal, but thought I'd do my usual Liverpool match infographic for the Champions League Final.
All stats from either Stats Zone or UEFA Match Centre.
I won't insult your intelligence by trying to analyze this match like I do Liverpool's; I simply don't know the teams well enough to state what was and wasn't out of the ordinary.
A quick graph via a request from the comments section in this post, and compared to the total chances created in 2011-12 to further illustrate Liverpool's progress in attack.
Premier League only, as that's all I can find stats for. All totals via Who Scored.
A few notes:
• Liverpool created 66 more chances this season, and that's after having to replace the players who created the third-, fourth-, and fifth-, and seventh-most chances last season.
Another yearly tradition, although it's not as if there aren't a plethora of outstanding video editors –which there weren't when I started this tradition. None the less, you can't argue with tradition. And it was a good year for goals, in contrast to, say, 2011-12 or 2010-11.
10) Bale OG 1-2 Spurs: This will never not be funny.
First, the usual way of looking at this (see also: the 2011-12, 2010-11, and 2009-10 versions):
versus club:
• City (1st --> 2nd) = +1
• United (2nd --> 1st) = -2
•Arsenal (3rd --> 4th) = -2
• Tottenham (4th --> 5th) = +2
•Newcastle (5th --> 16th) = +1
• Chelsea (6th --> 3rd) = -4
• Everton (7th --> 6th) = -4
• Fulham (9th --> 12th) = +6
• West Brom (10th --> 8th) = -3
• Swansea (11th --> 9th) = +3
•Norwich (12th --> 11th) = +2
•Sunderland (13th --> 17th) = +3
•Stoke (14th --> 13th) = 0
• Wigan (15th --> 18th) = +5
•Villa (16th --> 15th) = -1
• QPR (17th --> 20th) = +3
• Relegated/Promoted 1 (Bolton 18th --> Reading 19th) = +1
• Relegated/Promoted 2 (Blackburn 19th --> Southampton 14th) = -2
• Relegated/Promoted 3 (Wolves 20th --> West Ham 10th) = -2
Notably better against Fulham, Wigan, Swansea, Sunderland, and QPR.
Compare these totals to those from last season.
The headline stat is a simple one. Liverpool scored 24 more goals in the Premier League this season, and conceded just three more. In all competitions, Liverpool averaged 1.81 goals per game and a goal every 49.6 minutes.
Previous Match Infographics: Manchester City (h), Arsenal (h), Manchester United (h), Norwich (a), Stoke (h), Reading (h), Everton (a), Newcastle (h), Chelsea (a), Wigan (h), Swansea (a), Tottenham (a), Southampton (h), West Ham (a), Aston Villa (h), Fulham (h), Stoke (a), QPR (a), Sunderland (h), Manchester United (a), Norwich (h), Arsenal (a), Manchester City (a), West Brom (h), Swansea (h), Wigan (a), Tottenham (h), Southampton (a), Aston Villa (a), West Ham (h), Reading (a), Chelsea (h), Newcastle (a), Everton (h), Fulham (a)
As always, match data from Stats Zone and Squawka.
Goals:
Coutinho 23'
Acta est fabula, plaudite!
No, that wasn't Jamie Carragher's testimonial. That happened a few years ago. Although, for all of QPR's threat, it might as well have been. He leaves with yet another clean sheet, and his 398th win in 737 appearances for Liverpool.
11am ET, not live on the US. Live on Fox Soccer 2Go, and delayed at 6:30pm ET on FSC.
Last season, Fox televised every match on the final day other than the one on espn2. There were matches on Speed, on Fuel TV, on pretty much every cable station Fox owned. This season? Nothing extra; just the standard three televised matches.
Previous Match Infographics: Manchester City (h), Arsenal (h), Manchester United (h), Norwich (a), Stoke (h), Reading (h), Everton (a), Newcastle (h), Chelsea (a), Wigan (h), Swansea (a), Tottenham (a), Southampton (h), West Ham (a), Aston Villa (h), Fulham (h), Stoke (a), QPR (a), Sunderland (h), Manchester United (a), Norwich (h), Arsenal (a), Manchester City (a), West Brom (h), Swansea (h), Wigan (a), Tottenham (h), Southampton (a), Aston Villa (a), West Ham (h), Reading (a), Chelsea (h), Newcastle (a), Everton (h)
As always, match data from Stats Zone and Squawka.
Goals:
Berbatov 33'
Sturridge 36' 62' 85'
An unfamiliar formation, lined up in a 3-6-1, and an end-of-season tempo led to Liverpool passing and possession without reward for the first half an hour, an unwelcome reminder of the toothlessness which was all too frequent at the start of the season.
10am ET, not live on TV in the US. Delayed on FSC at 2:30pm, but otherwise, streams.
Last four head-to-head:
4-0 Liverpool (h) 12.22.12
0-1 Fulham (h) 05.01.12
0-1 Fulham (a) 12.05.11
5-2 Liverpool (a) 05.09.11
Last three matches:
Liverpool: 0-0 Everton (h); 6-0 Newcastle (a); 2-2 Chelsea (h)
Fulham: 2-4 Reading (h); 0-1 Everton (a); 0-1 Arsenal (h)
Goalscorers (league):
Liverpool: Suarez 23; Gerrard 9; Sturridge 7; Henderson 5; Agger, Downing 3; Coutinho, Enrique, Skrtel, Sterling 2; Borini, Cole, Johnson, Şahin 1
Fulham: Berbatov 13; Ruiz 5; Sidwell 4; Duff, Kacaniklic, Rodallega 3; Baird 2; Karagounis, Richardson, Riether 1
Referee: Mark Halsey
Guess at a line-up:
Reina
Johnson Skrtel Carragher Enrique
Henderson Lucas
Downing Coutinho Borini
Sturridge
At the least, Liverpool will be replacing at least two near ever-present starters for the next two matches.
Previous Match Infographics: Manchester City (h), Arsenal (h), Manchester United (h), Norwich (a), Stoke (h), Reading (h), Everton (a), Newcastle (h), Chelsea (a), Wigan (h), Swansea (a), Tottenham (a), Southampton (h), West Ham (a), Aston Villa (h), Fulham (h), Stoke (a), QPR (a), Sunderland (h), Manchester United (a), Norwich (h), Arsenal (a), Manchester City (a), West Brom (h), Swansea (h), Wigan (a), Tottenham (h), Southampton (a), Aston Villa (a), West Ham (h), Reading (a), Chelsea (h), Newcastle (a)
As always, match data from Stats Zone and Squawka.
