2017-18 review: Big wins, improving backline and building blocks

While Klopp and the Liverpool squad are preparing for the Champions League final in Kiev, with the 2017-18 Premier League campaign now complete we can see what progress has been made – both this season and over the longer term.

The most important achievement is securing Champions League football for next season. It’s the first time Liverpool have claimed a place in Europe’s premier club competition for two successive campaigns since 2007-08 and 2008-09.

The Reds have displayed a consistent level of performance not seen since that time over the last two seasons, too. By following up the 76-point haul of the previous term with 75 this, Liverpool have amassed their second-best two-season points tally in the Premier League era.

Klopp’s team may not have sustained a title challenge in either campaign, but the foundation of consistency, in the form of taking two points per game for two years, suggests the building blocks are in place for a crack at bringing home title No.19 in the near future.

With Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino, and especially Mohamed Salah in fabulous goalscoring form in 2017-18, it was Liverpool’s fearsome attack which did a lot of the work in powering the Reds into the top four.

The side scored 84 league goals this season, which is Liverpool’s second-best goals-per-game record in their entire top-flight history. That’s no small feat given it was their 103rd campaign in England’s top division.

As you would expect from such a high-scoring season, there were lots of matches where the Reds rattled in plenty of goals. When Andy Robertson scored the fourth against Brighton and Hove Albion on the final day of the season, he helped Klopp to equal an attacking record for the club in the modern era.

The 4-0 win over the Seagulls was the 21st time under their current manager that Liverpool have scored four or more goals in a league match. That equals the club’s Premier League record, held by Rafael Benitez, though the Spaniard had more than twice as many games in charge as Klopp has had to date.

It was also the 11th time the Reds have won a league game by at least four goals on Jürgen’s watch. That draws the German level alongside Roy Evans and Brendan Rodgers for big-scoring league wins, and while he is four behind Benitez, who would bet against Klopp’s Liverpool breaking that record next season?

It wasn’t just a season for big wins by Liverpool standards either. Of the Reds’ 21 league wins this season, 13 were by at least three goals. This gave them the highest proportion of wins by three or more goals by any top-flight side since 1936. You always want your team to win more matches than they do, but when they got it right this season, Liverpool got it really right.

Not that the improvement has only taken place at the front end of the team. The Reds conceded 38 league goals this season, picking up 17 clean sheets along the way, and these were their best defensive figures on both fronts since 2009-10. But for three-quarters of the campaign, Liverpool’s backline was performing at elite levels.

In the early weeks of 2017-18, Klopp’s side had a number of league matches where their opponents scored several goals. Within the first nine games, the Reds conceded three at Watford, five at Manchester City and four at Tottenham Hotspur.

However, for the 29 matches following their defeat at Wembley, Liverpool only conceded 22 league goals, which is the fewest of any team in the division across that period. Their tally of 14 clean sheets in that spell was the most in the Premier League, too.

They also defended set-pieces better than they have in recent times. Klopp’s men conceded just eight league goals from set-plays, and only five sides in the division conceded fewer. More pertinently, it was the fewest a Liverpool side has let in across the past eight campaigns.

The challenge is now to sustain this defensive improvement across the whole of next season, but equally it’s not a short-term burst of impressive form. It’s a high level of defensive solidity across seven months, and the rate of 0.76 goals per game conceded in that time has only been bettered by the club in four complete Premier League seasons.

This combination of power at both ends of the field has enabled the Reds to dominate matches to extents rarely seen in recent times. In total, Liverpool led for 1,517 minutes in 2017-18, which is a tally that has only been beaten 10 times by any club in the Premier League over the past 21 seasons.

Factor in the 482 minutes Liverpool spent trailing, and their net figure for the season was 1,035 minutes in credit. This makes them just the 26th team since 1998 to break the 1,000-minute barrier, which is a sign of how well the team has done this season. It’s no guarantee of success, of course, but 14 of the sides in this bracket won the league that season.

The Reds also did pretty well when it came to seeing games out, as they were one of only three teams in the Premier League who didn’t lose a match in which they took the lead. They averaged 2.5 points from the 28 games where they got in front, which was a slight improvement on their 2.4 points per game average last season.

While their record against the top six wasn’t as strong as it was in 2016-17, when Liverpool remained unbeaten, against the rest of the division it was top-notch. Klopp’s team lost only one league match against the bottom 14 sides this season, and Manchester City were the only team who took more points against those clubs.

When narrowing it to matches against teams who finished in the bottom half of the table, Liverpool won 15 of their 20 games and amassed a goal difference of +46. They took the same number of points in 2008-09 and 2013-14, but the impressive goal difference makes this the Reds’ best Premier League season in that regard.

We’d all like to see the Reds win every one of the big games of course, but there are far more matches against teams outside the top six. A strong performance here is imperative in order to achieve the club’s league ambitions, and Klopp undoubtedly has his side on the right track here.

The outcome of the Champions League final will largely determine how 2017-18 is remembered. But win or lose in Kiev, the fine work the manager and his players put into their Premier League campaign this season should not be underestimated or overlooked.