If there were much in the way of correlation between spending and results, one might expect Tuesday's EFL Cup tie between Liverpool and Tottenham to be a clash of early season free scorers. Instead sides who since the start of last season have committed nearly one billion dollars to strengthening their attack face off at Anfield on Tuesday night with both struggling to jump start their scoring. For Liverpool, the crisis is not so immediate.
Six goals from their first four games is perfectly adequate on the surface level, the eighth-best return of any side in the division. Their 6.72 expected goals is the sixth best in the division, though scrub penalties from the equation and Andoni Iraola's side sit ninth at a little under one and a half xG per game. That is not bad, per se, for a team that is without last season's top scorer Hugo Ekitike and that is adapting to the demands of a new head coach.
There are, however, a few caveats that paint a more worrying picture on those early season numbers. First and most obvious, Liverpool's fixture list has been a kind one out of the gate. Ok an emotionally charged road game against Newcastle to start off the campaign is tricky, but if this is by some distance your hardest task in a run of four matches then that should be a period to run up the goals and xG.
Instead, Liverpool have lumbered: 1.75 xG when chasing the game against Nottingham Forest, 1.3 against Fulham. These are middling numbers for any team aspiring for top six, worse for a side like Liverpool, for whom the foundations of the post-Kloppian age are hyper-priced attackers. Ninety-eight minutes are too few to assess Bradley Barcola, while it will be some time before Ekitike is back to the impressive levels he showed before his Achilles injury last season.
As for the other two, who may not see the pitch on Tuesday night, the spotlight is brighter. It is at least shining a more favorable light on Alexander Isak, trailing only Erling Haaland in the scoring charts with three from his first four. As with the team as a whole, there is the caveat of opposition quality, but Isak has got three shots in every league game so far except the win over Ipswich, when he had scored with his first two anyway.
That he did not have quite the same shooting joy against Atletico Madrid is for now perhaps not indicative of a great deal, particularly as he got an assist in that game. There are encouraging signs for Florian Wirtz too. Averaging nearly 40 high pressures per 90 minutes is encouraging in a team as possession-dominant as Liverpool, all the more so when it is being coached by Iraola, who demands so much of his players without the ball.
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