Frenkie de Jong, Ajax, and Artificial Transitions: Reverse Engineering Insights on Turnovers
A few months ago I wrote a piece on how high risk passing and an organized press can be combined to turn a side’s own turnovers into scoring opportunities . Therein, I argued that Liverpool’s crossing and diagonal heavy system is one that creates chances not just through successful passes, but also through unsuccessful ones. Essentially, these high difficulty passes into danger areas were attempted not just because of what they could create if they fell to one of Liverpool’s men, but also for what they could create if they fell to an opponent. Successful passing outcomes are by no means irrelevant by this logic, though. If Liverpool could, they’d much rather just complete every pass. And this is another facet of Liverpool’s style that seems statistically optimized – the side’s most valuable passes by expected pass value happen to be the ones we typically associate with their style of play: From LFC home games last season: - highest attempted value - highest expected com