Author: Theo Dorus
PSG vs Liverpool match preview: A test of nerve and identity in Paris
Liverpool head to Paris on Wednesday night knowing they do not need to win the tie in one evening, but they do need to leave the Parc des Princes with something to take back to Anfield. The FA Cup is gone and the Premier League picture has become far more complicated. That leaves the Champions League as the clearest remaining route to a season-defining achievement. The challenge, though, is severe...
How Liverpool’s machine is tearing out the heart of Klopp’s team
Editor’s note: In this follow-up to his recent opinion piece on Mohamed Salah’s departure, Theo Dorus expands the argument to Liverpool’s wider post-Klopp direction. Liverpool’s data department should be the envy of football. It is staffed by physicists, mathematicians and astronomers, because the skills needed to build statistical models and predict outcomes from complex data are much the same wh...
A heavy defeat and a hard truth as Liverpool are outclassed by City
Liverpool went to the Etihad on Saturday with hope of reaching Wembley. They left with a 4-0 defeat, their FA Cup run over, and more uncomfortable truths laid bare. The scoreline was emphatic. The manner of it was worse. For a little over half an hour, Liverpool were in the game. Then it unravelled in a brutal spell either side of half-time, and there was no route back. This was not a freak result...
City at home, Liverpool with nothing to lose
Liverpool go to the Etihad on Saturday afternoon as underdogs, and there is no point pretending otherwise. Manchester City are at home, they have already beaten Liverpool twice in the league this season, and they remain one of the toughest knockout opponents in Europe. On paper, it is a difficult draw. In practice, though, it may also be the kind of occasion that gives Liverpool a chance to play w...
How Liverpool betrayed Mo Salah and forfeited its soul
Almost two years on from Jurgen Klopp’s departure, we may be witnessing the failure of a data-driven moneyball system, and Klopp himself may have foreshadowed it as far back as the 2021-22 Premier League season. On March 24, the ‘Egyptian King’, as our adoring fans call him, announced he was leaving Liverpool Football Club. Mohamed Salah will play his last game for the club this season, a year ear...