Ipswich-Liverpool 0-2: Iraola's first win came in his worst Liverpool performance

The verdict, before the numbers

At Portman Road Liverpool won 2-0, kept their first clean sheet of the season and handed Andoni Iraola his first victory since taking the job. Five points from three matchdays, fifth place.

And it is the worst match Liverpool have played this year. Not "one of the worst": the worst, and by some distance.

The match in which nothing happened

Let us start with the number that makes this game unique in the weekend.

Neither side produced a single chance worth more than 0.30 expected goals. Not one. Across twenty-four attempts between them, the most dangerous was worth 0.13.

Of the nine matches played in Europe between 3 and 5 September, this is the only one where that happened. In every other, at least one team got in front of goal in decent shape. Not here.

The evening's totals: Ipswich 0.60 expected goals, Liverpool 0.74. Together 1.34, the lowest figure of the round.

So how did it finish 2-0?

It finished 2-0 in three minutes, and from two shots that were worth virtually nothing.

5th minute, Alexander Isak. A chance worth 0.12 expected goals. Gakpo supplies it.

Three minutes later, Isak again. A chance worth 0.13. Gakpo supplies it again.

Two goals from 0.25 combined expected goals. Put another way: Liverpool won the match with the sum of two quarter-chances, both built by the same man, both finished by the same man, inside the opening nine minutes.

After that, almost nothing happened for eighty-one minutes, and nothing happened at either end. Barcola, the new arrival for one hundred and twenty-three million, came on in the second half with the game already put away.

Iraola's three matches, lined up

Here the story gets genuinely interesting, because Liverpool are doing the exact opposite of what you would expect.

At Newcastle Liverpool produced 3.13 expected goals against 1.59, twice their opponents' output, away, against a far from easy side. They drew 2-2.

At Anfield against Nottingham Forest they produced 1.28 and conceded 2.88: they were dominated in their own stadium, and anyone who watched that match knows it. They drew 2-2.

At Ipswich they produced 0.74, their season low, in a match without a single proper chance. They won 2-0.

Three matches, three completely different levels of performance, and the best result came from the lowest level. Five points from 4.24 expected points: over the three games the ledger is nearly balanced. It is inside the individual matches that the numbers and the scoreboard are arguing.

What we take from it

Two readings, kept apart because one is a fact and one is an opinion.

The fact. Iraola's Liverpool concede very little when they win and an enormous amount when they draw. The encouraging signal from last night is not an attacking one, it is defensive: 0.60 expected goals conceded across the whole match, and their first clean sheet of the season. Three days earlier, against Forest, they had conceded 2.88 at home.

The opinion. A side built like this — with Isak up front and Gakpo feeding him — can afford ugly matches, because it converts them into points anyway. The risk is believing that is a method. It is not: two goals from 0.25 combined expected goals are not planned, they are gratefully received.

And Ipswich?

Worth a line, because the picture is not as black as the results say.

Ipswich have three points from three matches and their expected total was 2.99: they are the most "honest" team in the Premier League, the one whose return matches what they have produced to the decimal. No credit, no debt.

The problem is not luck, it is the defence: twenty-three box entries conceded in three matchdays, and eight goals against. The 5-2 taken at Old Trafford was not an accident, it was consistent.

The honest bit

Winning while playing badly is not a flaw. It is a resource, and it is what separates the sides that last from the sides that stall. Anyone reading these numbers as a condemnation is using them badly.

But it is not repeatable. An attack producing 0.74 expected goals loses far more often than it wins, and Liverpool had a striker on a perfect night plus an opponent who created nothing either.

And the thing to watch now is not Isak. It is how much Liverpool concede when the opposition is real. Three matches: 1.59, 2.88, 0.60. If the Ipswich number becomes the norm, this team has a future. If the Forest number does, it does not.

Check for yourself. In the Meritometro you will find the verdict on every Premier League match based on chances rather than results, and in the Nerd Zone you can go back through Ipswich-Liverpool shot by shot, with the value of each attempt.