It ends as much as the creativity behind Liverpool's bad numbers after the winter break

An immersion in Liverpool's numbers after the winter break suggests that the team is playing at a level similar to the previous one. But a bad end and a lack of efficiency leave Jürgen Klopp on the ground.

his is the most dynamic Liverpool side in the history of the club. And yet since they’ve returned from the winter break, their attacking play has lacked any kind of zest.

Games against West Ham and Atlético Madrid were defined by their inability to create in the midfield and thread the needle against rigid, defensive blocks. Both Atlético and West Ham hit them from set-pieces and well-orchestrated counter-attacks. Both then sat in, condensed the space, and asked Klopp’s men to play between the lines or cross over them.

The Watford game was different. Nigel Pearson’s men played on the front foot for 90-minutes. They got up into Liverpool’s shirt, ready for a fight. Jürgen Klopp’s side never punched back, never seemed willing to push them to tempo or do what was required to push Watford's two back lines out of position to open up space and to create chances.

Analyzing the team’s numbers since their return from the break is tough. It’s a small sample size relative to what has gone before, and they’ve played four opponents in the Premier League and Champions League who have been happy to sit in and defend. The numbers do help re-enforce what you've seen with your eyes, though. This doesn't just feel different, more lethargic. It is, numerically.

Liverpool’s dribble attempts and progressive runs are both up since they returned, the latter most significantly. A progressive run differs in that it is independent of a player taking on a defender. It’s about an attacking player carrying the ball into space. As is obvious, Liverpool now have more space in front of them on average, with the opposition sitting in pair of congested blocks, challenging Klopp’s side to break them down.

Prior to the break, Liverpool averaged around 18 progressive runs per 90 in both main competitions, a number that would good for the 14th mark in the league. Since the return, however, that number is up 23 per 90, what would be the sixth-highest total in the league.

It’s a fairly dramatic stylistic shift. As I’ve noted before, Liverpool have evolved beyond being an all-blitzing, all-the-time, counter-attacking team as they’re so often described. They’re more controlled these days, happy to spend long periods knocking the ball about at the back and in midfield. Their possession numbers, both in terms of time per possession and the average number of passes within each possession, are matched only by Man City.

Those numbers remain stable, though there’s no doubt Liverpool’s passing game has lost plenty of its rhythm and potency. Norwich, West Ham and Atlético were happy to sit off, to allow Liverpool's defenders and midfield to carry the ball rather than zip it around. Watford were up in the face of Liverpool's defenders right away. But due to a quirk in their system, they all but voided the midfield zone. Playing against those two styles didn't always have a profound impact on some of the numerical totals, but that they didn't change says as much about the players inability to adapt on the fly to a pair of frustrating styles.

Prior to the break, Liverpool attempted and completed the most long passes in the league, by a good distance. They were happy to knock the ball around like any, dominant possession side. But when they saw an opening, they would get the ball vertical as quick as possible, dropping the ball into space for Mohamed Salah or Sadio Mané to accelerate onto.

With teams sitting deeper, that space in-behind isn’t there. Liverpool’s long ball passes and attempts have been much less effective, yet they’re still attempting the same volume per game.

That’s the theme: many of the numbers are similar, but they’re translating to less efficient, less effective play on the pitch. The best example is in the box. Liverpool have taken more touches on average per game since the break than they did beforehand. And that includes the Watford game, in which the team managed just two paltry shots in the box.

Touches in the opponent’s box are up by around four per game, which may not sound like much but is in fact a pretty steep increase over the course of four games. That’s four more times per 90 a Liverpool player should, theoretically, be in a more dangerous position, and yet they’ve failed to break opponents down.

Worse still: the effectiveness of those touches. Touching the ball in the box at a high rate is usually indicative of a team’s dominance over the game. They have almost all of the possession. The opposing side sags off into a low block. The ball gets knocked around the box as the controlling team probes for an opening. Liverpool have failed to craft those chances post-break, though. And when they have, their finishing has been really, really poor. Pre-break, they were finishing games with an open-play post-shot expected goals total of 1.9. Now, that figure has dropped below one.

That sounds like a nerdy, waffly metric, but it boils down to this: when you do create chances in open play, how likely are those shots to go in the goal? That number has almost halved in the last four games -- and the team scored three against West Ham! There is no one metric that sums up how effective you've been going forward, but OPPSxG is as near as you can get.

Individually, the front-three have been poor for long stretches. They've struggled against deeper-lying defenses, struggled to create moments of individual brilliance, and have spent long periods of games looking disjointed. Most it has been a systemic issue, though. They have received the ball in poor spots or, like Mané against Watford, had to go hunting for the ball out of their natural habitat due to the opposing defence clogging up the width of the pitch. They've all dropped off or roamed away, which usually looks like a perfect bit of creative freedom -- one dragging a defender out of position, the other knifing in-behind. Indeed, against West Ham that's exactly how they got back into the game. But too often we've seen Roberto Firmino, Salah and Mane stepping on each others toes.

They will rebound. Together they form the best attacking force in world football, each accentuating the brilliance of the other. A mid-break lull has been a constant throughout Klopp's time on Merseyside; perhaps once they left their foot off the pedal for 10 days or so it's hard to slam it back down in an instant. The supply line behind the front-three has lacked creativity and its typical spark, but there movement and finishing has been just as troublesome. With the return leg against Atlético looming, it's time to get it corrected.