Contents
1. Foreword.
2. Introduction
3. Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean.
4. General Discussion of Game-States.
5. Analysis of Liverpool’s Efficacy Across the Different Game-States.
6. Description/Analysis of Liverpool’s Style of Play.
Foreword
“In this article, Samuel brings light to very specific ideas from different influencers from fields which would appear in antipodes when comparing. In-spite of the optimal receptivity you’ll have for learning from the exalted individuals cited in these pieces, it is the truth that the lens of singularity for such would only lead to inferior learning. Why? Because, when one is sharing how they interpret ideas (in detail), irrespective of the topic, it is almost always centred around their own unique perspective which contrasts to all who are reading. Like a magnifying glass. It is like you are reading through the eyes of the writer, with your own. Allow the potency of writing to linger within your mind, consider the fine anecdotal accounts who back it, and then, don’t merely consider the ideas from Aristotle & Klopp alike, rather, consider Sam’s unique perception yielded through the interpretation and resources shared subsequent, before constructing your own consensus.
Exemplary to what it means to be a synthesiser, he has explained interesting insights centred around football while citing Greek philosophers. The practical examples provided coupled with the points for reference that yield from such, naturally, are unmatched when it comes to understanding ‘WHAT’ game-states are. And, how they curve into general life areas that Klopp often describes his ideology to be, anyway.”
Introduction:
The road for Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool has come to an end, the season has been one where the expectations and hopes for the team gradually increased due to their consistent and firm start to the season, consequently announcing themselves as title contenders. However, since the FA cup defeat, due to a culmination of several factors they seem to have grinded to a disappointing but somewhat expected halt. Now, many others have offered different opinions and reasons why Liverpool seemed to have stumbled, for me at least there seems to be several factors that could be discussed and brought to the fore: recruitment, player usage, injuries, tactical, physical, psychological, individual player performances and so forth. However, the issues vary, depending on who you talk to. I will be using this excerpt to discuss Liverpool’s lack of temperance regarding achieving the golden mean across the different game-states. Though I do not believe this to be the reason why Liverpool failed to win the title, I believe that what is about to be discussed can be perceived as one of the underlying reasons. This will be a philosophical discussion which will provide the basis for other factors such as recruitment, tactics, individual player performances and psychology to be discussed. Liverpool went on to finish the season on 82 points with a goal difference of +45. This placed them third in the table, 9 points of the league leaders. Let us now begin.
Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean
The first point of discussion in this writing will be on Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean concerning the topic of virtues. According to Aristotle for anyone to be virtuous (someone who displays behaviour of a high moral standard), one must observe the mean and act accordingly to avoid the excess and deficiency, this being determined by reason. To explain this point further let us look at the virtue courage. Aristotle’s definition of courage as a virtue is that it is a sort of moderator or marker between cowardice (deficiency) and (over)confidence (excess), To quote Aristotle himself: ‘The man who faces and fears the right things for the right reason and in the right way at the right time is courageous.
To allow us to digest this even further it seems that Aristotle is saying that the courageous man feels fear but can act in the face of that fear by correctly assessing the situation for what it is and acting accordingly with confidence, thus displaying courage. At the same time, we must be careful, too much of the excess (confidence) can result in rash choices that we may otherwise call stupid (choosing to fight a pack of lions only to be killed within seconds). Here can we see how one must float between the excess and deficiency.
So, in a sense Aristotle is saying there must be a specific context or state present for true courage to be exercised, it can be seen here that courage is a choice. The courageous person judges that some dangers are worth facing and others not, he lies between the coward who runs from everything and experiences excessive fear and the overly confident person who thinks every danger is worth facing and experiences no fear. Here it can be seen that apart of being courageous is about choosing when to be courageous.
To conclude this philosophical discussion and to connect it to the rest of the article I would like the reader to keep these things in mind:
· Excess and deficiency — there are different situations, different life-states that provide the context and the basis for the actions we go on to undertake, using Aristotle’s interpretation of courage, one cannot be courageous about something that involves no risk or fear.
· To speak specifically to excess and deficiency, it is clear that there are some situations in life which require us to be more fearful (being chased by someone with a gun, fearing for our lives and running away) and some situations where we must take a stand in-spite of our fears and impose ourselves (standing up for someone who is being bullied), in both situations it can be seen that the individual is fluctuating between fear and confidence.
General Discussion of Game-States
Now, we shall begin this next part of this writing by talking about game-states. What is a game-state? Game-state is a term that refers to the football specific context that provides the basis for the actions of the players or manager during the game. Players and managers account for state the game is in and governed by reason make choices within the game to achieve the end goal: win the match. For example, at an 0–0 game-state it is common to see more conservative tactics, more patient short passes, less risky actions attempted especially in the first and second phases of play (build-up and progression phase) here it can be seen that naturally a fear or respect of the opponent is induced, this is especially seen at the beginning of games.
In contrast, in a game-state where the team is behind by 1 nil with say 20 minutes left to go, this is where verticality is necessary, with more forward passes, more overlaps, more attacking combinations and quicker passes. In this situation the team is moving away from fear/respect of their opponent and more towards confidence and conviction in their own abilities. More risk has been introduced because of the game-state. To a certain degree it can be seen here that it is the external that determines the internal, it is very easy to envisage a Sunday league manager shouting lines like this from the side-line; “Okay lads, last minutes of the game we’re winning 2–0, just keep the ball ticking, no giveaways, nothing gets passed us’ — a fearful and conservative approach, this is the polar opposite of something like this being shouted: “We’re 1–0 down, there’s 20 minutes, we have to give everything now, I need lots of runs in behind, lots of crosses, we need to find a way’ — a confident and fearless approach, It can be seen that this is similar to the fluctuation the courageous man undertakes when going between fear and confidence.
Analysis of Liverpool’s Efficacy Across the Different Game-States
Liverpool’s style of play is incredibly efficient and a legitimate way to play to say the least, however an issue with the style of play that I feel has cropped up time and time again this season is this: Liverpool struggle to impose themselves and dominate games in the way they would like across the variety of game-states. Now, according to the stat expected goals against (xGA) that measures the quality of chances that an opposing team creates against a particular team. Liverpool have conceded a xGA of 20.78 when playing in a 0–0 game-state. This accounts for over half of the total xGA they’ve accumulated, below are the stats for xGA across the other game states.
· 20.78 xGA (0–0)
· 7.55 xGA (1nil up)
· 4.64 xGA (1nil down)
· 6.77 xGA (more than 1nil up)
So, why are Liverpool drastically conceding more high-quality chances when the game is 0–0 compared to other game-states? The difference in the figures is staggering and mind-bogglingly, nonetheless I want to attempt to answer the question proposed above. The Liverpool way of playing is geared towards scoring goals (duh!), with direct attacks, aggressive counter-pressing & pressing, fast powerful running through the opposition lines. It is important for the reader to bare this in mind because I will be making the argument that it is this style of play that causes Liverpool to be less effective across the different game-states. Klopp’s team want to continuously attack their opponents as quickly as possible; we all know the famous Klopp quote where he explains the difference between his style of play and that of Arsene Wenger: “He likes having the ball, playing football, passes. It’s like an orchestra. But it’s a silent song. I like heavy metal more”. Whilst I would be the first to argue Klopp has clearly shifted and developed his ideology further and further away from that of his Dortmund days, it cannot be mistaken that this quote represents the underlying basis of his beliefs on how football should be played.
Description/Analysis of Liverpool’s Style of Play
From the way I have described Klopp’s style of play along with the stats provided it becomes very plausible to suggest that this kind of football is more effective in very specific game-states. Allow me to explain: this type of football is based on scoring goals and launching attacks, as quickly as possible. On the surface there seems nothing wrong with this statement but it becomes problematic when you realise it is impossible to constantly pin your opponent in their half for 90 minutes without suffering yourself. In the context of the premier league an even game-state is a paramount due to the large number of pressing teams. This tactical development of the out of possession phase mean that teams are determined to meet and engage their opponents as far up the pitch as possible, with territory ceded only when necessary. In turn this means that in possession teams must account for this in their game-model, allowing them to maintain their efficacy across the different game-states.
Liverpool want to go forward so much and so quickly that they end up losing so many balls which often lead to the opposition eventually capitalising (Alisson, who finished the season with the highest save % can only do so much). This is in stark comparison to Man City and Arsenal who prefer to wait for gaps to appear by circulating the ball whilst slowly encroaching into their opponent’s half patiently waiting for the right moment to appear before playing vertically. Whereas Liverpool wants to force their way through teams in a sense, without the patience to wait for those gaps to appear (circulating the ball with the aim of finding the free player) they want to get the ball from back to front as quickly as possible without enough consideration for the game-state. This approach can be characterised similarly to rash, overly confident man who walks into every dangerous situation head-on in, in comparison to Manchester City and Arsenal who judge every situation for what it is and displays courage (verticality/going forwards) at the right time and in the right way.
Below is an image that illustrates how quickly teams progress the ball into the next zone. Arsenal and Manchester City progress the ball considerably slower than Liverpool across every zone. This in of itself does not provide any conclusions, however connecting this with the rest of this excerpt it can be concluded that speed of play when progressing the ball to the next zone is a factor to be considered when discussing why Liverpool struggle to impose themselves across the different game-states.
The image below also shows Liverpool as a team who speedily progress the ball through the zones before slowing when they can reach the final third (red, red, blue)
The 0–0 Game-State
Analysing Liverpool specifically during an even game-state (when playing badly) you often sometimes see players performing actions on the ball in a somewhat lackadaisical manner. Long balls into the first line without any direction, poorly weighted passes into teammates, poor decision-making when deciding on when to go forward or backwards and so forth. For example, if we go onto analysing actions performed by players out of possession when Liverpool have the ball (midfielders and attackers), you will often see an excessive number of vertical runs off the ball. This alongside proactive positioning by team-mates that further encourages verticality, an example of this is when both #8s position themselves far too close the last line of attack. This in turn leaves too much space between the build-up and attacking units, encouraging longer range passing as team-mates find themselves too far from each-other (meaning more verticality).
A 0–0 game-state is often where teams will be at their most proactive with regards to engaging as high up the pitch as possible, Liverpool often respond to this by playing long and fighting for 2nd balls. But while this is a legitimate tactic to deploy in certain instances, it is not always.
Solving pressure locally, with the ball on the floor is something that is expected of an elite team such as Liverpool. The actions described above lead to unnecessary ball-losses meaning more transitions being conceded and more settled attacks the team will have to defend against in sub-optimal circumstances (3v2s, 2v1s, 1v1s).
What is being described above encourages more high intensity sprints on excessive tasks which in turn mean that the team have less energy to perform high quality attacking actions when players finally get on the ball after chasing the ball around, this cycle described above repeats itself again and again. It also goes on to generate a sort of negative feedback loop, in which the team loses the ball 3,4 times in a short space of time, situations like these will often happen several times within games.
The last point I will be emphasising is on the collective dynamics in relation to the game-state. During an even game-state Liverpool often seem less intense in their actions (sprints, tackles, pressing, duels etc). This is obviously not due to the effort or commitment of the players but rather the dynamics and situations the team find themselves in: When the team’s philosophy is based on displaying courage (verticality) as quickly as possible no matter the game-state, it can be seen as a commendable and valuable trait to possess and while it creates many benefits, it can come at a much greater cost. For when said courage isn’t determined by reason like when, why, how do we go forward to the degree that it should, players often find themselves over-working on unnecessary tasks, sapping their precious energy. This was especially noticeable last season and to put forward a more recent example the game against Everton (24thApril 2024) comes to mind.
This is now the end of the discussion.
