A Quick Introduction
If you're reading this, first, thank you so much for supporting the LFIJ community. Second, I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Steve, I'm 44, from Los Angeles, and I love sports and competitions of all kinds. I played baseball, basketball and American football growing up and into high school. I've been following/watching Si pretty much since practically the beginning of the channel — somehow my algorithm actually worked for once and showed me his stuff early on. I love anime, and he had a shit ton of waifus in the background in his small room back in the day, so I respected it and he made a ton of sense.
I've been a fan of Liverpool since 2007, when my friends told me I would really like watching the Premier League and that I should pick a team. They were Chelsea and Fulham fans (yuck), and said I would probably like Liverpool because they had a star player with the same name, Steven Gerrard. I thought that was dumb, but still gave them a shot and started watching. I would have started watching football earlier, but in America we never got Premier League games available to us. My dad and I would always root for England in the World Cup, and our favorite player at the time was Michael Owen. So when I found out he played for Liverpool as well, I started to heavily think this would be my club. Especially when I thought back to my mom ALWAYS playing me Beatles records as a kid — so much so that I know every song practically by heart, whether I want to or not. Don't get me wrong, I love the Beatles, a huge musical influence for me, but my mom worshipped them. So yeah, Liverpool became my team. I got to do the Anfield tour in 2012 when I visited England for three weeks, and that was really special. Can't wait until I finally pony up enough cash to see a game there. During the tour was when I found out about Istanbul and other amazing and tragic history. From that point I was totally hooked. Say what you will about baseball being really boring — I grew up a HUGE Dodgers fan, and watching Kirk Gibson hit that home run was like watching Liverpool beat Barcelona. Watching the Lakers during Showtime was like watching Liverpool during Klopp with Mané, Firmino and Salah. Especially the Buvač days when it was practically always 4-3 scorelines. I love miracle moments, I love special play, I love the history of it all, and it just made sense to follow Liverpool the way I followed all the LA teams I grew up with. Yeah, everything about the club feels super special and connects with me.
Why I'm Doing This
I'm a huge math nerd — if I hadn't dropped out of college to pursue music, I would have majored in math. So now that I'm old and just work developing software all day, I decided — especially after the tumultuous season we had last year — that I would tally all the stats for every Liverpool game. And before you say, "you know there are websites that do exactly all this and would save you tons of time" — you're completely right. But there are two reasons I'm doing it:
- There's no way I want to pay Opta or some other shit money to get access to the level of detail I want, when I could do it myself.
- I want to see the game from a more statistical standpoint, from my own point of view, so I can see if all the feelings I've had over the years about what "proper football" is supposed to look like actually come to life when you look at the numbers — essentially watching the game in slow motion, which is what I have to do.
I felt like I could trust myself to tally up the more subjective columns and not be biased in a way that says anything other than what it says. I will for sure let you know how I feel about a player and what I actually see in the stats, and try to meld the two. I'm also not going to regurgitate the same talking points as everyone else, other than to quickly disprove or reaffirm the narrative.
I hope that what I write about over the course of this season will add something to your Liverpool-loving life, because this takes hours to do. It's definitely extracurricular homework.
Star Performer of the Preseason: Trey Nyoni
This kid played lights out. His approach to our game was practically immaculate. I can't wait until he becomes a starter. I know he's young, but his natural instincts are pretty much always right, and his stats back it up.
193 total possessions — resulting in 190 total passes, 2 shots (1 on target), and 1 giveaway.
Of the 190 total passes, he completed 176 (92.6%), and only 4 of them were really bad, unforced-error passes, while 5 of them were key passes. Of those 5 key passes, 2 were the second assist (the hockey assist) leading to goals. One highlight that sticks out is the switch-of-play ball to Frimpong on the far post, where Frimpong first-time crossed it back across goal to Wirtz right in the center, who smacked it in.
39:08–39:12 vs Leeds — the switch out to Frimpong on the far post, his first-time cross back across goal, and Wirtz arriving in the middle to finish.
How He Ranked Among the Midfielders
- 1st — passing accuracy (92.6%)
- 2nd — forward passing accuracy (88.3%)
- 2nd — key passes per 90 (2.38)
- 1st — fewest unforced passing errors per 90 (1.90)
Defensively:
- 1st — successful tackle attempts per 90 (approx. 7)
- 2nd — interceptions per 90
- 3rd — ball recoveries per 90
- 2nd — clearances per 90
- No errors leading to a goal.
Overall, he was Man of the Match in 3 of the preseason games based on the LFIJ community numbers.
I know Nyoni is young, but he'll be very useful if he can keep these performance levels up. I see no reason why he can't, because he makes a lot of what he does look pretty effortless.