This Premier League season, Liverpool is experiencing a problem that it hasn’t had in years. The solution might lie with José Mourinho, and Darwin Nez might stand to gain.
In 2023, José Mourinho seems like a memory because his best years are already in the past. The Portuguese manager, who is notorious for having disastrous third seasons with clubs, has reached that stage with Roma and currently has his team ranked 10th in Serie A after already losing to two teams in the bottom six.
However, some of Mourinho’s ideas merit respect given his longevity of success. Diego Torres stated he had a seven-point game plan in a biography of his time at Real Madrid.
Although there may not be many parallels between Mourinho and Jürgen Klopp’s methods of playing the game, the first two items on the checklist are accurate. The issue for Liverpool is that it has forgotten about these ideas in the first few weeks of 2023–2024.
The two tenets in discussion are as follows: “football favours whoever causes more errors in the opposition” and “the team that commits fewer errors wins the game.” It is evident how significant these are to Mourinho because three of the remaining five points in the plan use the term “mistake.”
Football mistakes are difficult to quantify because practically every goal involves a mistake made by the other team’s defence at some point. Opta, the Premier League’s official data partner, tracks on-ball errors that result in a shooting or goal, and while the data isn’t precise or comprehensive, it does provide some insight into which players and teams are the most prone to making mistakes.
Klopp inherited a club that was in a disaster on this front when he moved to England. In 2013–14, Liverpool committed 43 Opta-defined errors, the most of any Premier League team since records have been kept twelve years ago. In the following two seasons, the Reds’ total decreased to 32, although it was still, at best, second-worst in the division both years.
Klopp’s team has been successful at forcing expensive errors from rival defenders with their mercilessly devastating high press. They made a staggering total of 39 against Liverpool in 2017–18, and 33 when the league title was won two years later. The Reds have made 10 fewer defensive errors per season on average than the teams they’ve faced in each of the last six seasons for which FBRef has opponent error data available.
However, Liverpool has made five mistakes while only benefiting from one, putting this streak of dominance in danger of ending in 2023/24. It was definitely worth it because the later resulted in Darwin Nez tying the score at Newcastle when Sven Botman failed to clear the pass to him. The Reds are at the bottom of the division for error differential thanks to the five at the other end.
The only one that really hurt Liverpool’s chances of winning the game was at Brighton last weekend. It seems unfair that Alisson Becker was blamed for the first goal even though he ought to have stopped Simon Adingra’s strike since Alexis Mac Allister was tripped up in possession and Virgil van Dijk made a poor passing decision. However, it also highlights the differences between Mourinho and Klopp, as it is inconceivable to think that the latter would ask his goalkeeper to play center-back when the team was in possession, which is how Alisson was placed just before Adingra made his imprint.
It’s only that neither of the ensuing Liverpool shots struck the back of the net. Trent Alexander-Arnold made mistakes that led to goals against Bournemouth and Newcastle, Joe Gomez and Dominik Szoboszlai made mistakes when Aston Villa visited Anfield. Along with Jol Matip’s tragic own goal at Tottenham, there have been a few too many errors in recent weeks. Mac Allister also had an on-ball error against Union SG.
Expecting perfect play from a team that takes risks and plays forward-footed football is unreasonable. However, Liverpool needs to get back to making its opponents work harder than it does for itself, and it might need to borrow a page from Mourinho’s playbook in doing so. If it can, Nez has demonstrated that he is willing to strike.