Jurgen Klopp’s description of his Liverpool side as “mentality monsters” in May 2022 is increasingly misappropriated. It has become synonymous with Liverpool recovering points and winning games from losing positions.
In reality, it was never about that. Klopp’s words came after Liverpool’s FA Cup final win over Chelsea. They beat them on penalties after a goalless 120 minutes — an exact repeat of the Carabao Cup final that February. Klopp was praising his players for their resilience during a long season: Liverpool played 63 games in all competitions, starting in mid-August and ending in late May.
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Those two domestic cups were nearly part of a quadruple, with Liverpool losing the Champions League final (1-0 to Real Madrid in Paris) and finishing second to Manchester City in the Premier League, despite earning 92 points — the second-most by any Premier League runners-up, after their 97 in 2018-19.
Liverpool recovered 20 points from losing position in 2021-22, winning five and drawing five of the 12 games in which they fell behind. In the end, the difference between them and City was not how well they could rescue games (City only took nine points from losing positions) but the ability to see out wins.
City won 29 of the 30 games in which they led, while Liverpool drew five times from winning positions: against Brentford, City, Brighton, Tottenham and Chelsea. The notion that Liverpool’s comebacks in the current season — already taking the fourth-most points in a single Premier League campaign from losing positions (27, with seven wins) — are the hallmark of champions is a myth that needs busting.
In the 31 Premier League seasons, there have only been three instances of the title going to the team to recover the most points from losing positions.
There are, in reverse chronological order: Manchester United in Sir Alex Ferguson’s final season in 2012-13 (29 points, nine wins and two draws), Arsenal in 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), though this was the joint-most with Arsenal, who they beat to the title that season by 18 points.
They are exceptions which prove a rule true: that champions are champions because they largely go ahead in games and see them out. It evidences what psychologists call the “availability heuristic”, that opinions are formed based on what can be recalled. Comeback wins get etched into the brain more often (and more accurately) than straightforward ones, simply because they are more memorable. Because they are easier to recall, we overestimate their frequency and value.
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For example, Liverpool’s 2-1 win away to Aston Villa in their title-winning season of 2019-20. They were 1-0 down on 86 minutes, then scored twice to take all three points. It was the exception to the rule, with Liverpool leading at half-time in 24 of 38 games that season — they went on to win 23 of them.
94 minutes on the clock. Step forward Sadio Mane…
That dramatic late winner at Villa Park in 2019 😍⚽ pic.twitter.com/5Jqf6WWCML
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) December 24, 2022
Taking the average Premier League champions from the competition’s 31 completed seasons, they fall behind in close to 11 games and earn around 14 points from losing position. With the average Premier League title won with 88 points, the proportion of points won from losing positions typically accounts for 15 per cent.
Tellingly, the proportion of Liverpool’s total points won from losing positions has been higher in each of the four seasons since their title win than it was in that 2019-20 campaign, partly because they have fallen behind more too.
“I prefer to be 5-0 in the final moments, but that’s tricky,” Klopp said recently. “There are different ways to control a football game. What you have to do after 60 minutes is accelerate, speed up, overlap, underlap.”
Liverpool’s intensity-centric style makes them predisposed to falling behind. They build up from deep and are increasingly focused on progressing in central areas instead of crossing, which carries a greater transitional threat the other way than risking the ball from the wings.
Their intense pressing and counter-pressing mean Liverpool concede space closer to their own goal — a necessity to try to regain it closer to the opposition’s one. But when this goes wrong, they become fatal flaws. Last season, it was Liverpool’s nemesis. Consequently, they can go behind in games against weaker opponents, who they would be expected to beat anyway.
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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, returning 116 points in 80 games. Nobody comes close, and yet, since that 2018-19 season, Liverpool’s points per game (ppg) when they concede first (1.48) is only worth 56 points over a full campaign (38 games). It is a slightly extreme example to demonstrate, but compare that to when they score first, 102 points (2.68ppg) across a full season, and the contrast is stark.
Excluding this season, there have been 18 instances of a team recovering at least 22 points from losing positions in a Premier League season. There have been more runners-up (four) than champions (three), with three other top-four finishes. Eight times, those teams have finished fifth or lower.
Comebacks have never been indicative of title-winners, at best a semi-typical quirk of United under Ferguson, but not with present-day City — they have been particularly mechanical.
Up until this season, 2020-21 was the only successful campaign where City reached double digits for the number of times they fell behind in matches (10). In their five title-winning seasons between 2017-18 and 2022-23, they never won more than 10 points from losing positions. This was despite, at worst, hitting 86 points (2020-21) and, at their best, being centurions (2017-18).
Recovering points from losing positions has become a common trend across the Premier League this season, as more teams become attack-minded and less risk-averse defensively. It has been, uncharacteristically, a feature of Pep Guardiola’s City this season. Like Liverpool, their issues in 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 going 2-0 down to Aston Villa that afternoon, before recovering to win 3-2, “was the plan”, as City beat Liverpool to the title by a point.
That, of all matches, showed that being able to recover games is an essential skill but not one a team should be built upon. While champions tend to vary in the proportion of points they earn from losing positions — from 4.1 per cent by City in 2018-19 (four out of 98 points) to 32.6 per cent by United in 2012-13 (29 out of 89) — a golden thread is that they all recover at an impressive rate when they do go behind. This is obvious: champions win points.
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Three-quarters of champions have averaged at least a point per deficit faced and the Premier League champions’ average is 1.27. It is a hallmark of title-winning sides that they show resilience under pressure, and tactically be flexible with approach play, formation and substitutes (squad depth wins leagues) against opponents who are more likely to sit off and defend. Guardiola described City as “effective and patient”, a hard combination to be, when they recovered from a goal down to beat West Ham 3-1 away in September.
But there is a paradox to how many times teams should want to pass this acid test.
If City or Liverpool beat Arsenal to this season’s title, they will be an exception to the rule (and particularly to City’s own rule) in a unique race to be Premier League champions.
As far as the history books show, being comeback kings often leaves a team as mere Premier League princes.
(Top photos: Getty Images)