Former Liverpool player Bobby Clark is set to join Brendan Rodgers and earn the Reds a small fee, while Giovanni Leoni has been named on the shortlist for the Golden Boy award.
The Premier League’s worst time-wasters
Something with which Arne Slot has had to contend since arriving at Liverpool has been the time-wasting antics employed by other teams in the Premier League.
Thanks to Opta in the Guardian, we now know who the worst culprits have been this season.
Only Wolves, Man City and Nottingham Forest get the ball back in play quicker than Liverpool, and it will be of no surprise to learn that Arsenal take the fourth-longest amount of time to restart play.
Brentford, Burnley and Sunderland are the only teams to take longer getting back underway than Mikel Arteta’s side.
It is Brentford who take the longest to restart play, reaching 33.5 seconds on average.
Not only is the time-wasting making an impact on Liverpool, but it is also having an effect on the game as a whole.
Despite games lasting 51 seconds longer than last season on average, the ball-in-play time is down to 55 minutes from 56 minutes and 59 seconds.
Today’s Liverpool FC News
• Liverpool have presented 14 former players with league championship medals following a campaign by The Redmen TV – great to see this from the club!
• With Clark reported by the Times to be joining Celtic from Red Bull Salzburg in January, Liverpool are set to take home just over £1 million from the deal – that’s due to his 17.5 percent sell-on clause
• Leoni has been named on the 25-man shortlist for this year’s Tuttosport Golden Boy award – fingers crossed he comes back just as strong next summer
More from This Is Anfield
With Ibrahima Konate in poor form, some fans have called on him to be replaced by Joe Gomez in the team. Jack Lusby has looked into the stats behind the two defenders’ partnerships with Virgil van Dijk:
“While Gomez’s win rate alongside Van Dijk is superior, Konate has played 40 more games as the Dutchman’s partner and they average more points per game together.
“There has been a growing rhetoric that Gomez is becoming more of a liability when used at centre-back, with a poor performance next to Leoni in the Carabao Cup victory over Southampton used as an example.
“But he is unbeaten in seven games as Van Dijk’s centre-back partner since their most recent loss – which was the 5-2 thrashing at the hands of Real Madrid in the Champions League in February 2023.”
READ: Joe Gomez or Ibrahima Konate? – What stats say on Virgil van Dijk’s best partner
Elsewhere in the football world today
• Fabio Paratici is to return to football as joint sporting director of Tottenham – two and a half years ago he was banned by FIFA after Juventus, where he was sporting director and managing director, were found guilty of false accounting
• Brighton goalkeeper Jason Steele has signed a new contract until the summer of 2027, while ex-Brighton boss Graham Potter has left himself open to taking the Sweden manager’s job
• Sheffield Wednesday are to be imminently served a winding up order with the club owing £1m (BBC Sport) – let’s hope the new football regulator is effective in future
Your evening entertainment
The usual football is almost back, but for now we’ll have to make do with another quiet evening.
Perhaps spend a few of your spare minutes, to watch our guide to the Anfield Origins Tour, a free experience offered by Liverpool that teaches you some of the history of the club.
We had a great morning filming this and learning some new facts about the Reds!
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