Liverpool have missed 102 big chances this season. What’s going on?

“With all the chances we create, it’s unbelievable that we don’t score more.”

That was Arne Slot, speaking last week in a press conference before his Liverpool side’s 10th defeat of the Premier League season to Brighton & Hove Albion. Head coach Slot corrected a reporter who said they have struggled to “score goals in the first half of games” by saying it is a problem that extends across matches as a whole. He added that it was even more remarkable given the “quality we have up front and throughout the whole team”.

In total, Liverpool have missed 55 big chances in the Premier League, 41 in the Champions League, three in the Community Shield, two in the Carabao Cup and one in the FA Cup. So why are they squandering so many opportunities, and is it as bad as Slot suggests?

The Athletic breaks down the reigning English champions’ troubles in front of goal across the season so far.

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What do the stats say?

Missed chances can never be avoided and for all the frustration at Liverpool’s profligacy this season, they are actually missing slightly fewer big chances per game (as defined by Opta) this season than last year, when they won the title. This is, however, still Liverpool’s second most wasteful season in the last seven years.

As a general rule, a ruthless streak defines the best-performing teams. Ten of Liverpool’s 25 Premier League wins last season were by a one-goal margin, and they outscored their expected goals (xG) number of 83.46, finishing with 86. The club’s ensuing transfer business over the summer was supposed to give Slot more options so they could win games more comfortably but has instead exposed deeper structural issues with the squad.

A damaging blend of injuries, waning individual form, and an inability to adequately replace the qualities lost through transfer-market departures has contributed to a regression.

In simple terms, only three Premier League teams — Manchester City, Manchester United and Arsenal — have missed more big chances this season than Liverpool. That is, to a degree, no surprise: the more chances you make, the more you are likely to miss, and the higher tiers of the table for that metric are dominated by teams at the top end of the Premier League standings. But Liverpool also have the third-worst record in terms of percentage of big chances missed (32.9 per cent).

Slot’s men have scored 50 goals, the fifth-most in the Premier League, and are almost in line with their xG figure of 51.06 (also fifth). The issue, however, becomes clear when they are compared to the sides above them. Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United and Aston Villa have all clearly outperformed their xG numbers, which in simple terms highlights superior finishing and greater efficiency in front of goal.

Liverpool also rank bottom of the league for shooting accuracy, at 43.08 per cent, and have its third-lowest big chance conversion rate at 32.93 per cent. When set against a shot volume of 487 — the second-highest in the division, just five fewer than Manchester City — the source of Slot’s frustration becomes obvious.

In the Champions League, it’s even worse. With 24 goals, Liverpool are the eighth-highest scorers in that competition, yet their xG is the second highest (27.67), only fractionally behind Bayern Munich (28.59). Paris Saint-Germain are its top goalscorers with 34, and have an xG of just 25.21.

Liverpool are taking shots from slightly further out this season, resulting in a slightly lower xG per attempt.

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Who is missing the chances?

Hugo Ekitike, Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo are the chief contributors, but they’re not alone. Across all competitions, Liverpool could fill an entire blooper reel with “Miss of the season” contenders.

Ekitike somehow spurned this close-range opportunity from Jeremie Frimpong’s cross when it looked easier to score in the 0-0 home draw with Leeds United.

Gakpo and Curtis Jones may be close friends off the pitch but their on-field connection was clearly missing away to Wolverhampton Wanderers as they combined to fluff an opportunity from even nearer the target.

Ibrahima Konate also missed at the same stadium in the FA Cup, and, much earlier in the season, Dominik Szoboszlai should have done better against Real Madrid when he found himself through on goal.

Gakpo’s misplaced header late into the 2-1 defeat to Manchester United at Anfield was another shocker, although there has been an element of bad luck with some of his opportunities.

Not only has he hit the woodwork four times, but many of his chances have tended to be of a higher difficulty to convert.

Ekitike and Salah, meanwhile, lead the way for missed “big chances”. Ekitike has scored 11 goals but squandered 11 clear opportunities, while Salah has five goals alongside 10 big chances missed. The pattern extends into Europe, where Ekitike tops the Champions League chart for big chances missed (10), with Salah close behind on nine. The downward trend in Salah’s productivity helps explain Liverpool’s readiness to let him leave on a free transfer this summer.

The more pressing concern for Liverpool is that their top-scoring players in the Champions League are Szoboszlai (five) and Alexis Mac Allister (three) — both midfielders. Florian Wirtz has underperformed during a stop-start debut season but has seen a number of efforts blocked by the last defender, most notably against Manchester City in the recent home defeat. The German also spurned two glorious opportunities against Sunderland and was denied in games against Marseille, Burnley and Arsenal, but ought to have done better against Crystal Palace.

As should Virgil van Dijk from several headed opportunities, although it would be unfair to blame the centre-back for issues at the end of the pitch where he spends the least amount of time.

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What about set pieces?

This continues to be a source of confusion and irritation for Liverpool fans.

Their team have scored more set-piece goals than any other Champions League club (nine) while conceding only once. Szoboszlai also needs to convert just one more direct free kick to equal a joint record held by David Beckham and Laurent Robert for the most scored in one season (six). All sounds rather impressive, right?

Yet Liverpool parted ways with their set-piece coach, Aaron Briggs, in December, as the Premier League trend had become so concerning that Slot was highlighting it as one of the defining reasons for the title collapse.

Liverpool didn’t score from a corner this season until the middle of December, but the turnaround since has been impressive: they now have seven, but apart from Szoboszlai’s stunning strikes, they haven’t netted in the Premier League through a free-kick routine and have also missed two penalties (Szoboszlai and Salah) across all competitions.

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What has been the impact on games?

Realistically, only a few of the really big chances could have changed the outcome of the matches they happened in. Among the more glaring misses, the only decisive ones fell to Jones and Gakpo.

Had Liverpool taken the lead against Wolves, they might have been better placed to control the game, rather than chasing an equaliser and then a winner in a situation that ultimately ended in defeat. Gakpo’s header against Manchester United may also have saved a point at Anfield.

It’s the number of lower-quality chances Liverpool have missed that has really added up.

Alexander Isak headed over from close range in the 2-1 defeat at Chelsea when Liverpool were 1-0 down just before half-time. Wirtz missed a golden opportunity early on against Brentford in that 3-2 away loss, and then another in the 1-1 draw with Sunderland at Anfield.

In this position, again, you would have expected him to score.

Mac Allister’s header that crashed off the crossbar at Fulham in a 2-2 draw was another one to rue.

But Liverpool only have themselves to blame, as across their 47 games this season in all competitions, they’ve come up against just a handful of truly inspiring goalkeeping performances.

The pick of the bunch was Thibaut Courtois, who made seven stunning saves for Real Madrid, though that league-phase game in the Champions League still ended in a 1-0 victory for Liverpool.

Gianluigi Donnarumma’s brilliant save from Mac Allister late in the 2-1 defeat at home to Manchester City may have been a game-changer, but aside from the heroics of Lucas Perri in the 3-3 draw at Leeds United, and a few impressive stops from Dean Henderson in the 2-1 defeat away to Crystal Palace, much of their shortcomings can be pinned on wastefulness.

In each of the games where Liverpool have scored with their first chance, they’ve gone on to win — West Ham, Brighton, Everton and Atletico Madrid at home — yet the number of matches where they’ve been genuinely ruthless is small.

Beating West Ham 5-2 was one occasion, as were the victories at Tottenham, Inter and Sunderland, but even when they battered Galatasaray 4-0 at Anfield recently, the scoreline really should have been much more lop-sided.

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So are Liverpool getting worse in front of goal?

Think of the way they started the season as a snapshot of what was to follow.

Liverpool created three chances in the first four minutes of the campaign’s very first game that Friday night at home against Bournemouth, and while they ended up winning 4-2, they should have scored many more than that. Since then, a string of bad away days and even more disappointing performances have resulted in the quality of their chances dropping as a game wears on.

The most difficult to stomach was the 3-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest in November, when every missed opportunity was cheered by the away end. Games against Burnley, where Liverpool had 59 shots on goal and scored only twice (one being a penalty), weren’t much better, and performances against Spurs and Brighton in recent weeks felt particularly bad because, for periods, the team never really looked like scoring.

Slot has diagnosed one of the major problems with this Liverpool team. It’s fixing it that is the hard part.