Liverpool 1.24bn euro spend provides transfer lesson for non-elite clubs
Liverpool might be spending now but over the last 10 years, they spent not much more than Everton. So there.
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A long mail about how Liverpool are brilliant and that
And so the narrative spins on without fact or reason: the big clubs in the Premier League have it all sewn up, it’s an unfair game, no one else can break in, wah wah wah cries the Everton fan while his new 800m pound stadium is being built on the banks of the Mersey.
But is it true? Can clubs ascend in the new order without state backing and is there an unbreakable glass ceiling in place keeping the little guy down?
Anyone remember the cartoon with Ivor Lott and Tony Broke (and their SOs Milly O’Naire and Penny Less?) yes my childhood was spent reading comics and playing out my road for 10 hours a day, they called that deprivation kids – it was heaven.
Anyway I digress, is that what we have created in the Premier League? Is Liverpool as a microcosm like a bad Buster comic strip where Everton have never stood a chance while their posh uppity neighbours with their “TV clapping” fans are destined to rule the roost forever?
It feels nice doesn’t it? To tell yourself that story if you’re an Everton fan, you never stood a chance, the game is rigged, the casino always wins, but is it true?
Looking at the last 10 years from 2015-24 what’s happened to these two hallowed clubs. Cast your mind back to 2015 the year Jurgen came to Liverpool. FSG had purchased the club in 2010 for what looks like a now paltry 300m following the disastrous ownership of Gillet and Hicks which nearly brought the club to ruin.
Liverpool finished the 2014/15 season in 6th place following a summer of terrible spending and in Klopp’s first season they finished 8th. Everton finished 11th both seasons in question.
Since that time according to CIES football observatory from 2015-24 Liverpool spent 1.24bn euro on players, 10th in Europe, miles behind Chelsea, United and City but also Arsenal and Spurs. That’s not even net spend Liverpool baiters: that table sees Liverpool fall to 20th in Europe over the same decade.
This was of course the decade Liverpool climbed from being the 6th placed team in England to currently being top of the pile and in a financial position to go out and spend 400m+ this summer without a sugardaddy owner.
But that’s just what rich clubs do you cry, poor Tony Broke Everton could never compete with that, but look on the same table for top spenders in Europe sit plucky little Everton in 17th place with 1.03bn spent. Yes really.
Any fan of football in this decade can name off their heads the superstars Liverpool bought and developed with this money: Salah, Mane, VVD, Allisson, the list goes on, some failures but overall a list of Premier League champions, greats and legends identified through data analysis and intelligent scouting.
Can you name a single success from Everton in this time period for just over 200m less spent? I was struggling and had to read the list of their top purchases, Gylfi Sigurdsson leads a list of Premier League journey men.
Ah but you say Liverpool signed Klopp, that was their stroke of luck (although plenty of opposition fans have tried to characterise the above 9 years of ascendancy while understanding their rivals as some sort of failure?!) but we forget Everton had Ancelotti as their manager in the middle of this period also.
Listen I get it, several clubs in the top 6 currently have gotten there primarily by virtue of their ownership, circumventing the usual rules of the hierarchy with enormous spending but as we see with Newcastle now PSR actually have teeth and they can bite these clubs so this will level the playing field going forwards.
I didn’t write this solely to say how great Liverpool have been the last decade (even though any objective observation confirms this) but just to demonstrate that there is a path to the top of the game for clubs who get their act together and who with proper owners and a clever coherent strategy can progress year on year.
That is simply identify talent at a level below the top clubs’ radar, buy and develop said talent intelligently and repeat.
Sitting in a room bemoaning cartels and glass ceilings won’t narrow the gap to the more successful clubs, like Tony Broke the only solution is to work hard and smart to narrow the gap and even in time overtake these clubs not follow Ivor Lott around crying about his Rolls Royce, and if it’s any consolation to our blue brethren your example and role maiden for doing that isn’t that far away.
Dave LFC
Why xG is better than actual goals
Some dialogue in the mailbox and a recent F365 article highlighted an issue I think needs addressing. xG. Not team xG but individual, which is an important clarification. I think a lot of people, and even clubs, are missing the wood for the trees in regards to xG. Let me explain why… (This is long and data heavy, for those not disposed, do yourselves a favour and scroll on down…)
If you want to be a successful Premier League no.9, what do we all think is the most important characteristic to have? I would suggest many people would say finishing. Goals are what strikers are judged on and being a world class finisher is probably the most important aspect to scoring goals. Correct? Well, I would say that is incorrect. I believe that finishing is overrated (and misunderstood) and in fact xG is a far superior way to judge the quality of a striker (and also of an attacking player in general, though a much more nuanced understanding and analysis of a lot of other metrics should also be used to fully understand strengths of forward players)
Let us take Cristiano Ronaldo. Here is a player vaunted for his finishing ability. The second half of his career he played as an out-and-out striker poaching goals and racking up enormous figures. He is also someone who leaps, salmon like, to power headers past keepers, acrobatically volleys screamers, and thunderbastards like the best of ’em. I think people consider him a master finisher. But here’s the thing, he’s not, he’s bang average.
From 2014 – 2023 (4x seasons at Madrid, 4x seasons at Juventus, 2x at Man Utd) Ronaldo had an xG of 229.46 and scored 234 goals. That is an over performance of 4.54 over 9 season, or half a goal per season. In 6 of these seasons he underperformed his expected goals. (and I could have fudged the data by only doing the last 8 seasons where his total output shows a 4.5 goal underperformance, but I refuse to fudge it, this is all of the data available, and the point is still illustrated) His numbers sit exactly where you would expect an average finisher to sit. And make no mistake, xG against actual goals scored is an extremely effective barometer for measuring finishing ability.
So how, if not through wonderful finishing, did Ronaldo rack up 234 goals in 265 appearances across that period? Well, let us think about a couple of scenarios; lets imagine a Juventus free kick wide on the right. There’s 80 minutes gone in the game and its tied. Most of the defending team’s players are back and the box is pretty crammed. Juventus’ player whips in the free kick and Ronaldo, utilising his athleticism, leaps high above everyone else and gets his head on it. Unfortunately, the cross was still fractionally too high, and it comes off the top of Ron’s head and balloons over the bar.
Another 5 mins pass. Corner to Juve, this time it’s hung up to the back post where Ronaldo is stationed, he hangs in the air for ages getting a good connection but can’t generate enough power to beat the keeper and its saved. Injury time, another attacking free kick, an inswinger from the left hand side. This time Ronaldo makes a near post run, timing it to perfection to stay onside, leaps and glances a header that leaves the keeper rooted and goes in at the far post. Everyone celebrates. Great goal, great finish. However, everyone forgets what came before.
He didn’t score that goal because he is an amazing finisher, he scored that goal because in 3 instances where the box was crammed and everyone was fighting to head it, Ronaldo used his athleticism to jump higher and hang longer, giving him a significantly better chance of winning the ball, and used his intelligence and experience to time his run to break the defensive line and get a clear header on goal. He created 3 xG situations, no matter whether they were a small or big chance, they were a chance. This process is the accumulation, little by little by little, of a potential goal, and Ronaldo is awesome at accumulating xG…
Now let’s imagine another example, Ronaldo is up top by himself. Juventus are 1-0 ahead and there are 5 mins left. They are playing defensive and leaving Ronaldo fairly isolated by keeping most other players back to defend. They know he can occupy a couple of defenders, and the opposition can’t be too open even this late. Juventus’ keeper comes and claims an attacking cross and Juventus look to counter. They go long to Ronaldo. Now first off, if Ronaldo isn’t big and strong then he will lose any battle with a big CB.
But Ronaldo is big and strong and so he gets on the end and holds the ball up. (if this was a small, fast player, the skill would be picking a run to allow the GK to have a good chance of playing a long ball into an open area where the player can utilise his speed to get on the end of the ball, it might be in the corner or in front of the defence, the key is successfully receiving the ball, wherever that is) Ronaldo now has his back to goal with 2 CB’s goal side. The xG of this position is exceedingly low. But Ronaldo being very good, gets his head up, sees a sprinting Juventus midfielder. He uses strength and skill to hold onto the ball until the player arrives, that midfielder then draws one defender away with a good run. Now Ronaldo has one defender between him and the goal. His options are smash it towards goal and hope it goes through the legs or just either side of the defender and in the corner of the goal, or try to beat the defender for a clearer attempt on goal. Ronaldo knows the defender in front of him, he understands the defender is very good but lacks slightly in acceleration. He decides to use a simple quick half step to buy a yard and then rifles it towards goal with a powerful shot. No need to try and beat him when you can buy yourself space safely.
He’s centre of the goal and knows his proximity to the goal means he has the power in his shot where if its close to the corners, its a goal. Here Ronaldo is using his instincts, experience and understanding of his game to extract maximum xG from a low xG starting point. If you don’t receive the ball, its 0 xG. If you smash it the moment you get near goal, its extremely low xG, if you lose the ball trying to beat a good defender its 0 xG. Great strikers, without necessarily consciously doing it, are always attempting to maximise the xG from a situation.
Now don’t get me wrong, ideally you want your striker to be a good finisher. Along with speed, strength, intelligence and everything else, it’s a bloody good facet to a no.9’s game. It’s just that being a good finisher, evidentially, makes significantly less difference to how good a striker is than the metric of xG.
For the relevant finishing stats (goal return against xG) let us look at all players from the Premier League last season. In first with an overperformance of 6.55 goals is Cunha, then Mbeumo on 6.37 goals, Wood 4.36, Iwobi 3.98 and Amad with a 3.25 goals overperformance. The top 5 players in the league for purely xG are: Mo Salah 27.71, Haaland 23.95, Isak 22.36, Wissa 20.73 and Watkins 18.63. Which list of 5 players more accurately illustrates the best goalscorers in the league?
Obviously a single season is not particularly representative, yet over the last 5 years the 2 strikers with the highest xG/minute were Haaland (100.86 minutes per xG goal) and Isak (133.5 minutes) with Kane and Jota close in behind. I’ve excluded all other wide forwards, though for reference Salah (131.82 minutes per xG goal) would be second and other wide forwards around top 10. Its pretty difficult/time consuming for over performance data but from the small group available, Wood, Foden, Son and Wissa seem the highest over performers over the last 5 years.
Yet how do we react and view these stats? Well let’s look at an example from F365. In the Mailbox recently James, Wirral queried why Ekitike’s assist stats were not detailed in a Mediawatch article that criticised his goal output and the biased presenting of data, Ed in the mailbox clarified the reason as this –
Taking league games only, we see that handily, Matheus Cunha and Hugo Ekitike both scored 15 goals in a similar number of minutes and took a similar number of shots. The difference? Cunha scored 15 goals from an xG of 8.6; Ekitike scored 15 goals from an xG of 21.6. You can be as cynical as you like about xG, but that is stark. Hope that helps – Ed
The insinuation here is that Cunha is doing a better job as a striker because he is overperforming his xG, indicating a very good finisher. And there is sound logic in that. However, a more accurate way to view those stats regarding Cunha and Ekitike is this: Cunha has finished really well this season. When he highly likely reverts to the mean, he will probably score 8-9 goals. When Ekitike reverts to the mean, he will likely score 21-22 goals, which striker would you like to buy? It actually takes 2 very unlikely seasons of overperformance and under performance to make these two players score the same amount of league goals.
Understandably, F365 put the emphasis on the finishing stat (actual goals against xG) and not the xG. To highlight the fickle nature of this finishing metric, Ekitike last season averaged -0.23 goals scored to xG per 90 (bottom 5% of top 5 leagues), but the season before he overperformed his xG, suggesting he was originally a good finisher, by +0.20 per 90 mins (top 7%), but the season before that he was a bad finisher again, very slightly under performing to -0.05 (bottom 35%). His first full season he was a… good finisher with +0.25 goals to xG (top 4 %)
You know what, I’m going to go further. xG is a more accurate representation of goals than ACTUAL goals. Yeah, I said it. Actual goals is our universe’s statistics. xG is the average across a many-world quantum universe. It’s what would happen if you took the average goal output from playing the season 500 million times. Rub out the in-off-your-arse, cross that go in efforts. The hit the post 17 times seasons. A true representative value of how many goals someone should score in a season. They might get lucky or unlucky in reality, but the xG tells you the underlying truth.
Ed Ern
P.S. There is an exception that proves the rule. Messi. He overperforms every season. Not only racking up enormous xG but then massively overperforming that xG. For the same period as Ronaldo, Messi accrued an xG of 219.91. He scored 253 goals, an overperformance of 33.1 goals in 9 seasons. And we only had the data when he was 27 to 37 years old. Insane.
Liverpool need defenders…
Good morning from South Africa,
You are absolutely correct, Why are they not concentrating on buying good defenders. Using make shift personnel will not solve their problems at the back. Other clubs will exploit our weaknesses.
We cannot do justice this season by claiming to defending our title. They are wasting money on signings like Isak, use homegrown talent.
Please forward my concern to Arne Slot.
Liverpool supporter for life, Stanley Michael
Who are the next elite coaches?
With Klopp and Carletto gone, there is a place in the elite level football coach club which I would say included Pep and Lucho with Hansi Flick also there. Maybe Conte?
This season will be interesting for the likes of Arne Slot and Xavi Alonso because if they are able to come up with a wide range of tactical set ups there is an argument that they can join that elite level. Certainly Liverpool’s squad is looking good with only minor tweaks over the next 4 seasons.
Will Frimpong become the Salah replacement? Can Gravenberch’s role be played by more forward thinking midfielders? Curtis Jones was positive upon Slot’s arrival and I rate him as an England starter but perhaps it is behind Bellingham and Rice rather than in front of them. Seems like a make or break season for Jones then.
Simeone, Deschamps, Allegri and Tuchel have won quite considerably more than Arteta and although I do rate the Basque he is still behind Unai Emery at the moment on a type of second tier.
I was a little disapointed when Simone Inzaghi took the walking football in a 130 fahrenheit farcical league gig. But filthy lucre and all that.
Any shouts for other coaches to join the elite? Vinnie perhaps?
Peter (where oh where are the British elite ones?) Castilla-La Mancha
Where’s the real women’s football coverage?
There have been some brilliant editorials and think pieces on your site over the years about the raw deal that women’s football gets, both in terms of media coverage/exposure and in terms of equitability.
Your overall editorial line (at least historically) has also always been one to do with questioning paradigms and avoiding mind-in-neutral assumptions surrounding the game, often, actually advocating for social justice and change in darker corners of football: toxic masculinity in fan-going, objectification of footballers’ partners, long-reads on the impact of gambling and alcoholism on fans and players spring to mind.
Whilst this editorial line might not be as pronounced as in the days when the likes of Daniel Storey, Pete Gill et al. wrote for you, it is still there. And it is for this reason, coupled with the fact that the football has just been bloody brilliant, that I write to communicate my disappointment in the lack of coverage of the Women’s Euros.
I may be spoilt in saying this, and that is fair enough. And sure, I can go to the BBC, and, following every game, read a myriad of articles not only about the Lionesses, but also about other teams competing in the tournament. Trouble is, I don’t want the vanilla of the BBC and the relatively hollow, platitudinous offerings of ex-players you find there. When the zenith of your critical deconstruction of the game is spearheaded by Phil McNulty, you truly are bathing in the most tepid of waters.
No. I want to see the tournament covered by you. I want to see the same depth of dissection that we got from the men’s Euros on F365, the player ratings, the analysis of individual’s contributions, genuine tactical deconstructions from writers whose opinions I respect, enjoy and look forward to reading. But, barring some threadbare match reports and a couple of enjoyable and very on-brand Johnny Nic offerings, we were left only with the (really great!) 16 Conclusions at the end of the tournament.
The men on the other hand, with all the sufferball drudgery and gruel they served up at the last Euros, generated 4-5 or more pieces following every single game. I know that driving traffic and clicks will most likely be at the heart of this, but I naively lived in hope that given who you are and what you have been, you might take a short term hit to try and elevate the coverage of the women’s game and the interest in it.
Surely, greater coverage of the amazing stories and discussion of tactics from the Lionesses has got to be more interesting than your daily (or more frequent) articles summarising tabloid gossip about Isak, analysing the tabloid gossip about Isak, and think-piecing about the likely trajectory of Isak when nothing has f*cking happened. You lampoon the tabloids in Mediawatch for their predilection for talking about nothing and confected articles based on Insta likes and ITK wags on X, and yet this seems to be increasingly used by F365 for the content that appears at the top of your website.
It is so depressing that a) people would rather read another non-update about something that hasn’t happened, and b) that you opt not to be braver and to platform the women in the hope that by putting something important in a place where the most important things in football should go (i.e. top of your page throughout the tournament) you could be a part of shifting the dial in perceptions and interest. As I have said above, I am sure that the soul-destroying answer to this is clicks, money, traffic and financial realities.
And I don’t say that to be critical of you. As a former journalist I know the unfortunate realities of what survival in a bloated market effectively sustained in its entirety by advertising are.
The Lionesses stirred the emotions and inspired me in a way that makes me love football like I used to. It is a hopeful, joyous love of football that has died in me towards the men’s game due to the cynicism, po-facedness and avarice of it all. By way of example, I could enjoy the drama, brilliant football and skill on show in the Qatar World Cup Final, but deep down do I actually care? Kylian Mbappe scores a hat-trick – I don’t give a sh*t – the game has turned him into an unlikeable, egotistical pr*ck full of self-entitlement and belief in his own importance. And the whole tournament played out against a backdrop of (at best) moral ambivalence and titanic greed.
By contrast, the rawness of the emotions, the pure passion, and how much it means to the players to pull on the Lionesses shirt harks back to my memories of Italia 90 and perhaps even Euro 96. I love Chloe Kelly like I loved Gazza; I love Lucy Bronze’s hard b*stardness like I loved Stuart Pearce’s, and I love Wiegman’s tactical skill and her humanity like I loved Sir Bobby’s. So much of the women’s game has moved forward, maybe in the future F365 can be a part of the vanguard of creating sincere, genuinely high quality coverage and deconstruction of the game. I hope so.
D*cky Malb@lls
(Wholeheartedly agree with all of the above but we have about 2% of the BBC’s budget and personnel. We simply cannot afford to cover women’s football properly. Even England winning the Euros garners very, very little traffic. It would literally cost us tens of thousands of pounds in revenue to cover the tournament in any kind of depth. Thankfully the BBC can – Ed)
People are watching though…
The news:
“England’s Euro 2025 final victory over Spain was watched by a combined peak TV audience of 16.2 million across the BBC and ITV, making the Lionesses’ win the most-watched moment of 2025.”
“No one cares about women’s football.”
He’s probably the same guy who was on TalkSPORT complaining that it’s being “rammed down our throats” — because in a world where we have virtually limitless streaming options, the TV shows a tournament once every 2 years.
If you don’t like women’s football, don’t watch it. Moaning about it is just pathetic.
Mike, LFC, Dubai
Defending Martin Mason and his sweary apathy
Is it possible Martin Mason’s email was taken the wrong way? “Nobody cares about the women’s game. give me a break” could also be interpreted as a response to other people saying the first part, as in “Give me a break, have you seen the coverage, have you seen the number of mails and comments, lot’s of people do care”.
Personally I’m on the fence, I cared enough to want them to win and enjoyed the victory and celebrations, just as I want British athletes to win every gold medal at the Olympics even though I’ve never heard of or seen 90% of them before, but I didn’t care enough to watch a full game. Whilst it is competitive, there is a level and that level is way below the credit given to it.
I have mentioned before about the exaggerated commentary and punditry in the men’s game where every goal is unbelievable, every save brilliant and this applies even more to the women’s game where clearly the level is a long way below the men’s, having said that, the winning penalty was struck really well and would probably have beaten most Premier League keepers as would the Spanish “straight down the middle” one, I would however expect that a reasonably competent keeper would save 80-90% of those I saw in both the final and v. Sweden.
Their determination and will to win cannot be questioned and the Coach’s tactics and ability to recognise that these are their biggest strengths. Please don’t tell me differently to what I can see, just because you want it to be so.
Howard (Switzerland women 1 Under 15’s 7) Jones
Don’t ever say that again…
In response to ‘Chloe Kelly the most decorated England player ever?’… I don’t know if this is intentional rage bait as I know you are going to get a lot of angry “men” replying to this, but can we all agree that “made 1.5 assists” is a sentence that should never, ever be type or spoken in a public forum ever again. Pauls post could have been the best written mail of all time, full of generational points, put once you utter 1.5 assists, the whole thing needs to placed in the bin.
Hammer McHammerface