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Manchester City and Liverpool look set to for the final hurdle of the premier league with 8 games to go. These final games are all vital for the two teams who are in contention for the title this season and the title race looks likely to go down to the wire. Both teams have enjoyed a successful season thus far and with less than 8 games remaining, a lot of things will come into the way of deciding the title.
Liverpool sits at the top of the table with 76 points having played one more game than City who are second, two points behind the reds. Manchester City’s remaining games would see them facing the likes of Fulham, Cardiff, Palace, Tottenham, Manchester United, Burnley, Leicester and Brighton while the reds will face Tottenham, Southampton, Chelsea, Cardiff, Huddersfield, Newcastle, and Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Both teams in the title contention have played really well so far but there is no doubt one team have to be a little bit superior as far as the starts are concerned. I went ahead and did a comparison of the two leading teams in the title chase based on several stats.
(N/B: All the statistics on this article are from whoscored.com and the official EPL site.)
Style of play:
Both the Reds and Manchester city likes to play attacking football with the aim of creating as many goalscoring chances as possible by opening up opposing defenses. However, the way they express their attacking style is the difference between the two clubs.
Manchester City employs possession football, trying as much as they can to stretch the opposition as wide as possible in order to create enough spaces in the central areas. This is brought about by Pep’s tendency to instruct his wingers to stay as wide as possible to invite the fullbacks who open up spaces.
This has resulted to many of City’s chances be from out wide or a result of cutbacks from wide forwards. Manchester City’s attacks mostly come out from the sides but most actions take place in the middle of the park. 46% of City’s action this season has been in the middle third while only 19% of the action has been in their own third according to whoscored.
Liverpool, on the other hand, likes to employ the high pressing game although the gegenpressing have been slightly more organized and not as intense as the previous season. Their goalscoring opportunities have been mostly as a result of the quick transition from defense to attack or from counter-attacking opportunities.
As a result, the Reds attacking penetration is often balanced with slightly more of it being taken care of by their inverted wingers, Mane and Salah. 46% of Liverpool’s action this season have come from the midfield and 22% in their own third.
Defense:
Having played 30 games so far, Manchester City have conceded 21 goals. They have conceded more goals at home (12) than they have away from home (9). Furthermore, they have managed to keep 14 clean sheets in 30 matches. The team has managed to win an average of 13.3 tackles and 9.3 interceptions per game while the average of 14.6 aerial duels won per game further highlights their defensive stability.
Liverpool’s defense has improved massively from last season following the integration of Virgil van Dijk into the team. The arrival of Allison Becker and a proper defensive midfielder in Fabinho has also contributed to the defensive solidity.
In the first 31 games, the Merseyside club has only conceded 18 goals with 9 of them being at Anfield. The 17 clean sheets so far this season also highlights how the addition of Allison has helped. Their defensive stats this season includes an average of 16.2 and 15.6 tackles and aerial duels won per 90 min respectively.
Manchester City has conceded an average of 6.2 shots per 90 mins compared to Liverpool’s 7.9 shots per game.
Offense:
Manchester City has so far scored a total of 79 goals in the EPL compared to Liverpool’s 70. The Manchester club has managed to score an average of 2.6 goals per game with 17.5 shots on average.
Manchester City is the club with the most shots (525) in the league this season while Liverpool is third behind Chelsea with 467 shots. They are also the club with the most goals from inside the box (68), 2 more than Liverpool who is second in the list. Out of their 79 goals this season, 62 of them have come from open play. Only 8 have been as a result of set pieces, while 3 of them have been as a result of penalties. The Cityzens have benefited with 4 goals from the opposition through own goals.
Liverpool, on the other hand, has managed to score 40 open play goals so far while they have also managed to score an outstanding 17 set piece goals, 9 more than their fellow title contenders. Liverpool has also scored a total of 6 penalty goals this season whereas they have also managed to score a total of 5 counter attacking goals which is three more than Manchester City.
Team play:
Both the two clubs like to play possession football as brought about by the passing stats. Manchester City leads the stats for the most passes with a total of 21,181 passes in 30 games as compared to Liverpool’s 19,357 in 31 games. The Cityzens makes an average of 662 short passes per game. They only attempt an average of 48 long balls and 2 crosses.
Liverpool manages to make an average of 625 passes per game with 569 of them being short while only 60 are long balls. Liverpool’s game is based on quick central penetration through transitions of play and this explains why their average crosses attempted per game is below 1.
