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Liverpool opened the scoring against Everton with a whirlwind counterattack

Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool have set a variety of marquee goals over the past seven years. It’s easy to imagine Mohamed Salah cutting in from the right and curling a shot into the opposite side of the goal, for example.

You can easily visualize Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson delivering precise crosses to grateful forwards, or Virgil van Dijk driving the ball home from a perfect free-kick situation. All teams have their established methods of attack and these are used by the Reds.

Counterattacks are probably the most exhilarating, especially when they happen immediately after an opposition set piece. Salah scored an official Premier League goal for the contender of the season this way at West Ham in 2021 and while perhaps not quite as spectacular, he also put the Reds on the path to derby victory on Monday.
After Cody Gakpo made it 2-0, Darwin Nunez had a few shots in before Salah had Liverpool’s final four tries of the game. Two of the Egyptian’s last foursomes were counted as counter-attacks by Opta (also known as ‘quick counter-attacks’), as was his goal. To be classified as such, an opportunity must be created “after the defensive [side] quickly converts defense into attack to win the ball in their own half. When Salah and Liverpool are at their best, they can do it. With his three opponents against Everton, the thirty -year -old recorded a small record for the season, because no player recorded herself in a single game of the Premier League in 2022/23 (for Whoscored). The encouraging thing at the team level was that each had been created by another player, with Nunez, Stefan Bajcetic and Roberto Firmino each during the Salah break.

The former Roma man also moved along Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappe to the players quartet on top of the counterattacks for the great competitions in Europe in this term and now runs the road with nine. On a base played for 90 minutes, this is now its best competition campaign in this area with the Reds. The number 11 has good chance of improving its best precedent of 12, which took place last season. The same goes for the team and the Jürgen Klopp era, although Salah is clearly the ringmaster. Liverpool have had 18 counterattacks in 2022/23, the most in the Premier League, fourth in England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Keep their chances and they will finish at 32 overall, only one Premier League side have improved in the last eight seasons.

Interestingly, it was Wolves in 2019/20 and the return of one of their key players, Diogo Jota, from injury was warmly welcomed at Anfield on Monday. If the Portuguese striker stays fit for the rest of the season, he should be able to help the Reds with quicker counterattacks. If there’s one disappointing thing about all these counter-attacks, it’s that they’ve only scored three goals. Their conversion rate of 16.7% this season is below the long-term average of 20.9 for the entire division and well below their 28 from the previous seven seasons.

However, the trio of quick attacks have proven their worth. As well as breaking the deadlock in the derby, Salah scored the winning goal against Manchester City on a counterattack, while Firmino scored the other, to equalize in what ended up being a 3-3 draw against Brighton.

It’s worth noting, then, that the goals conceded were all scored at Anfield, when it was thought they’d have more chances down the road if the opposition needed to be a little more adventurous. After all, Liverpool scored that way at Old Trafford and Goodison Park last season.

The Reds’ generally poor away game this season has no doubt contributed to them having just four quick shots when not at Anfield. With Salah and Nunez in counterattack form and Firmino and Jota back, hopefully Liverpool can pick up the pace in that direction. St James’s Park would be a great starting point.