Jurgen Klopp’s description of his Liverpool team as “monsters of mentality” in May 2022 is increasingly twisted. It has become synonymous with Liverpool clawing back points and winning games after losing positions.
In reality, it was never about that. Klopp’s words came after Liverpool’s FA Cup final victory over Chelsea. They beat them on penalties after 120 scoreless minutes – an exact repeat of February’s Carabao Cup final. Klopp praised his players for their resilience during a long season: Liverpool played 63 games in all competitions, starting in mid-August and ending at the end of May.
These two domestic cups were almost part of a quadruple, with Liverpool losing the Champions League final (1-0 to Real Madrid in Paris) and finishing second behind Manchester City in the Premier League, despite having 92 points – the second most number of all. Premier League finalist, after his 97 in 2018-19.
Liverpool have clawed back 20 points from losing position in 2021-22, winning five and drawing five of the 12 games in which they fell behind. Ultimately the difference between them and City was not in their ability to save games (City took just nine points after losing positions) but in their ability to achieve victories.
City have won 29 of the 30 games they have led, while Liverpool have drawn five times from winning positions: against Brentford, City, Brighton, Tottenham and Chelsea. The idea that Liverpool’s returns in the current season – already the fourth most points in a single Premier League campaign after dropping positions (27, with seven wins) – are the mark of champions is a myth that needs to be busted.
In the 31 seasons of the Premier League, there have only been three instances where the title has been awarded to the team that regained the most points after losing positions.
There are, in reverse chronological order: Manchester United during Sir Alex Ferguson’s final season in 2012-13 (29 points, nine wins and two draws), Arsenal during their 2003-04 Invincibles season (21 points , six wins and three draws), and United again in 1999-00 (24 points, six wins and six draws), although this was the most with Arsenal, who they beat to the title that season- there by 18 points.
These are exceptions that confirm a true rule: champions are champions because they advance well in matches and see them out. This highlights what psychologists call the “availability heuristic,” whereby opinions are formed based on what can be recalled. Comeback victories are burned into the brain more often (and more accurately) than single victories, simply because they are more memorable. Because they are easier to remember, we overestimate their frequency and value.
For example, Liverpool’s 2-1 win against Aston Villa in their title-winning season in 2019-20. They were 1-0 down in the 86th minute, then scored twice to take all three points. This was the exception to the rule, with Liverpool leading at half-time in 24 of 38 games this season – they won 23 of them.
94 minutes on the clock. A step forward Sadio Mané…
This dramatic, late winner at Villa Park in 2019 😍⚽ pic.twitter.com/5Jqf6WWCML
–Liverpool FC (@LFC) December 24, 2022
Taking the Premier League champions’ average over the competition’s 31 completed seasons, they fall behind in almost 11 games and gain around 14 points from losing position. With an average Premier League title won by 88 points, the proportion of points won from losing positions typically accounts for 15 percent.
It is telling that the proportion of Liverpool’s total points gained by losing positions has been higher in each of the four seasons since their title win than it was in the 2019-20 campaign, partly because they also fell further behind.
“I prefer to be 5-0 in the final moments, but it’s tricky,” Klopp said recently. “There are different ways to control a football match. What you need to do after 60 minutes is speed up, speed up, overlap, overlap.
Liverpool’s intensity-focused style makes them predisposed to falling behind. They build deep and increasingly focus on progressing through central areas instead of crossing, which carries a greater threat of transitioning the other way than risking the ball from the wings.
Their intense pressing and counter-pressing means Liverpool concede space closer to their own goal – a necessity when trying to find it closer to the opposition’s. But when things go wrong, they become fatal flaws. Last season, they were Liverpool’s archenemy. As a result, they may fall behind in matches against weaker opponents, who they would be expected to beat anyway.
Liverpool’s record from behind is comfortably the best in the league since 2018-19: 32 wins, more than their number of defeats (28) and 20 draws, yielding 116 points from 80 matches. No one comes close, and yet, as of this 2018-19 season, Liverpool’s points per game (ppg) when they concede first (1.48) are worth just 56 points over a full campaign (38 games) . That’s a slightly extreme example to demonstrate, but compare it to when they score first, 102 points (2.68 points per game) over a full season, and the contrast is stark.
Excluding this season, there have been 18 cases where a team has regained at least 22 points after losing positions during a Premier League season. There were more finalists (four) than champions (three), with three other top-four finishes. Eight times these teams finished fifth or lower.
The comebacks have never been indicative of title winners, at best a semi-typical quirk of United under Ferguson, but not with City today – they have been particularly mechanical.
Until this season, 2020-21 was the only successful campaign where City reached a double-digit number of matches behind (10). In their five winning seasons between 2017-18 and 2022-23, they have never gained more than 10 points while losing positions. And this despite, at worst, having scored 86 points (2020-21) and, at best, being centurions (2017-18).
Salvaging points from losing positions has become a common trend across the Premier League this season, as more teams become more attacking and less reluctant to take risks defensively. This has been, unusually, a feature of Pep Guardiola’s City this season. Like Liverpool, their problems controlling games – particularly against counter-attacks and in defending their left side – have been problematic.
Guardiola joked on the final day of 2021-22 that losing 2-0 to Aston Villa that afternoon, before recovering to win 3-2, “was the plan”, as City beat Liverpool for the title by one point.
This match, of all matches, showed that the ability to recover from games is an essential skill, but it should not be a skill that a team has to rely on. While champions tend to vary in the proportion of points they gain from losing positions – from 4.1 percent by City in 2018-19 (four points out of 98) to 32.6 percent by United in 2012 -13 (29 from 89) – the common thread is that they all recover at an impressive rate when they go behind. It’s obvious: champions earn points.
Three-quarters of champions average at least one point per deficit encountered and the average for Premier League champions is 1.27. Title-winning teams are characterized by their resilience under pressure and tactical flexibility in approach play, formation and substitutions (team depth wins leagues) against opponents who are more likely to sit and defend. Guardiola described City as “efficient and patient”, a difficult combination to be, when they recovered from a goal down to beat West Ham 3-1 away in September.
But there is a paradox about how many times teams should want to pass this decisive test.
If either City or Liverpool beat Arsenal for the title this season, they will be the exception to the rule (and particularly City) in a unique race to become Premier League champions.
According to the history books, being homecoming kings often leaves a team as mere princes of the Premier League.
(Top photos: Getty Images)