Liverpool out-possessed and out-shot their opponents by a considerable margin but left with only a point from their visit to Luton, a feeling we know all too well.
Jurgen Klopp did not shy away from the fact that his “whole team was not in a goalscoring mood” on Sunday, with his Reds outfit far from their best.
Yet, they have more than enough opportunities to take the wind out of Luton‘s sails instead of encouraging them to stay in the contest and come within minutes of a famous victory.
The hosts may have hardly seen the ball – they managed just 135 accurate passes – but as you can see above, they scored when they had momentum on their side, unlike the Reds.
The Reds had Luis Diaz to thank for rescuing a late point but as FotMob‘s stats show, Liverpool had plenty of opportunities to take home a valuable three points.
Darwin, how?
Now, this is not a hit job on Nunez. His finishing woes went hand in hand with how the team performed as a whole, but there was a little less laughing when it came to some of his finishes.
The No. 9 ended the match with nine shots, three on target, one hit to the crossbar and three big chances missed – no player has taken more shots in a Premier league match this season, it’s the joint-most with Erling Haaland and Marcus Rashford.
He was Liverpool’s brightest spark and as Klopp noted post-match, “what makes Darwin really different is that he’s involved in pretty much everything.”
But he has a brilliant knack of testing your sanity with how he can finish off strikes like the ones at Newcastle, but then fluff his lines from a few yards out as we saw at Luton.
Once his finishing becomes more clinical on a regular basis, there will be little stopping him. But just how long will we have to wait for that to come to fruition?
It was there to win
“We should have created more, and we should have finished one or two situations off,” Klopp rightly assessed after the 1-1 draw.
And the stats do not lie when it comes to backing up the manager as Liverpool ended the match with an xG of 2.85 compared to Luton‘s 0.81.
The Reds did not perform anywhere near their best and yet still had chance after chance to leave with three points against the relegation battlers – we’ve been here before!
Twenty-four shots compared to Luton‘s eight, but the ones on target tell the real story as the Reds managed six and the hosts five – as for big chances missed, it was six for Liverpool and one for Luton.
Football, eh.
Diaz, a man for the moment
If it had to be anyone, of course it was Diaz who rescued the late point.
It is hard to imagine the rollercoaster of emotions he has had to experience in the last week but as ever, he was reliable in front of goal just when the Reds needed him.
In fact, it was the fourth time in the league that Diaz had drawn Liverpool level from his 11 goals in the competition – four other times his goals have put Liverpool ahead.
This was hist first strike in the Premier League since tying up the game against Bournemouth earlier this season and his third of the campaign – his first was the only goal scored at Chelsea.
Of course, he was wrongly denied the opener at Tottenham too and while his contributions may not have been as high as some will have expected, he’s been in the right place when Liverpool need him.
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