Let’s do a quick blind comparison of two Premier League teams from this current season.

Team A still hasn’t lost a game. In fact, it hasn’t earned a draw. In fact, it hasn’t even trailed in a game. We’re just five matches into the season, and it already has a five-point lead atop the table. That’s tied with one other side for the biggest lead through five games in the history of the Premier League. And the other team to do it? It won the title by 18 points.

Meanwhile, Team B has scored 11 goals and conceded five. That gives it a plus-six goal differential, the third-best mark in the league. At least 50 other teams in Premier League history have outscored their opponents by more goals through five matches, and the same holds true for goals scored and goals conceded. It’s good … but it’s not great. Last season, Tottenham had a better goal differential than this team through five matches, and they finished one place clear of the relegation zone.

So, which team would you rather be?

It’s a trick question, of course: Team A and Team B are the same team.

Liverpool are undefeated this season, but they’ve still only won one match by more than a goal. And even in that one, the season-opener against Bournemouth, they didn’t take the lead for good until the 88th minute.

Liverpool beat Newcastle on the road thanks to a goal in the 100th minute from 16-year-old Rio Ngumoha. They took down Arsenal with an 83rd-minute free kick by Dominik Szoboszlai. They needed a 95th-minute penalty from Mohamed Salah to beat Burnley. Virgil van Dijk headed in the winner in the 92nd minute of their Champions League opener against Atletico Madrid. And Hugo Ekitike‘s 85th-minute tap-in-turned-red-card secured a 2-1 win against Southampton in the Carabao Cup.

Liverpool have somehow been even better and much worse than anyone would’ve predicted at the start of the season. So, let’s ask the same question that rival fans seem to be screaming, week after week: They can’t keep this up … right?

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Why do Liverpool score so many late goals?

Whenever a team continues to win in such an improbable fashion, it is attributed to a club’s superior, never-say-die mentality. That was the case with Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson. It’s what happens with Real Madrid in the Champions League every year. And it frequently felt true with Liverpool under Jurgen Klopp — and now it seems true under Arne Slot, too.

The stats seem to back that up. Since the Premier League was created in the early 90s, Liverpool have won 43 games with a goal in the 90th minute or later — a whopping 13 more than any other side.

So, Liverpool are better at winning games late than everyone else — or are they? At least, I’m not sure that’s what that statistic is telling us. There’s a more economic explanation for it.

Liverpool have the third-most points of any club in the Premier League era. On the whole, Arsenal and Manchester United have been better than Liverpool since 1993, so those two clubs haven’t had to win as many late games. Then, when Manchester City and Chelsea entered the picture with their wealthy new owners in the 2000s, they typically had better and more expensive squads than Liverpool. Before that, they weren’t anywhere near as competitive as Liverpool.

So, Liverpool sit in that sweet spot where they won lots of games and therefore, they won lots of late games. But they also weren’t as talented as the other teams that won lots of games, so a higher proportion of their wins came from late goals.

There’s definitely an Anfield effect here — opposing players tend to agree that it’s the hardest place in England to play. So, if you combine that with the fact that, for most of the Premier League era, Liverpool have been competing with richer and better teams, then it makes sense that they’ve needed to use every minute of every game to keep up.

Now, that isn’t quite as true anymore. They spent a net of $309 million on transfer fees this past summer. They made $773m in revenue in 2023-24, and some estimates rank them as the fourth-most valuable club in the world after Manchester United, Real Madrid, and Barcelona. Per FBref, they have the sixth-highest wage bill in the world.

So what’s the explanation for all of the late winners this season?

Liverpool have been the best team in the league when the score is tied in the second half of matches. They’ve scored four goals and conceded zero — both best or tied-for-best marks in the Premier League. They’ve also attempted 28 shots (nine more than anyone else) and conceded only five. The 23-shot margin is by far the largest in the league; no one else is above 10. Part of the reason they’ve scored so many late winners is that they’ve heavily tilted the field whenever they’ve needed a late winner.

Here’s how it looks for the whole league when we compare xG (expected goals) created and xG conceded in the second half when the score is tied:

Liverpool have created 2.49 xG and conceded just 0.11 at this game-state. The defense allows almost nothing, while the attack creates a ton. That’s great, but it still doesn’t answer the bigger, more important question.

Why do Liverpool need all of these late comebacks?

There are two problems with all of these late-game, tied-score stats: (1) we’re already cutting a small sample of five matches into an even smaller one, and (2) not everyone has played the same number of minutes with the score tied in the second half. If you’re one of the best teams in the world, ideally, you’re not spending too much time there.

Liverpool have needed so many late winners mainly because they’ve been quite poor whenever they’ve taken the lead. They’ve conceded 25 shots and attempted 25 when they’ve been up by at least a goal.

Now, it’s normal for teams not to register as many attempts once they’re leading, but good teams usually make up for that by creating higher-quality attempts than normal when they do attack because their opponent has to push the action and leave space behind the defense. Liverpool, though, haven’t exploited that.

Liverpool’s xG created and conceded is almost exactly even when they’re winning, and it has led to four goals being scored and five being conceded.

We’re still too early into the season to be too confident about any conclusions, but this sure looks like the profile of a team that has spent a ton of money on attack-first players and has spent most of the season playing with only two true midfielders, neither of whom is defensive-minded.

When opponents aren’t incentivized to attack against Liverpool — when they’re tied and we’re in the second half, a draw is in sight — then the imbalance doesn’t matter. Liverpool keep the ball and their attackers attack, and it all works. But once the other team has to attack, Liverpool can’t control the game anymore. They had 55% of the final-third possession when winning last season; this year, it’s down to 46%.

That’s not too surprising — it might even be by design — but what is surprising is that a team with Florian Wirtz and Mohamed Salah and Dominik Szoboszlai and Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak still hasn’t made teams really pay on the counter-attack. Liverpool’s xG per shot when they’re leading is 0.10 — or slightly below the league average for teams that are ahead. Last season, it was up at 0.13.

So what does it all mean?

Though Liverpool’s matches have been strangely partitioned this season, it’s better to look at everything together, and history tells us as much. From the previous 10 Premier League seasons, I looked at a number of statistics from Stats Perform for the first five matches to see what best correlated with points won over the final 33 games of the season. Looking at only certain game states made the predictions worse, as did removing what you might think would be the randomness of penalties.

The stat that best correlated with rest-of-season stats was “adjusted goal differential” — the blend of 70% of Stats Perform’s expected goals and 30% actual goals that I’ve referenced countless times before. It was more accurate than just goals, just expected goals, and just points. The correlation (also known as “r-squared”) was 0.44, which means that 44% of the variation between the points every team has won over the final 33 games over the past 10 seasons can be explained by each team’s adjusted goal difference through the first five games.

Here’s how that looks:

And here’s how things look across the league so far this season, by adjusted goal differential:

Ironically, this is exactly what happened the last time Liverpool won the league in 2019-20. The following season, their adjusted goal differential through the first five games was plus-0.78, the same number they’ve got now. They then won 59 more points over the rest of the season and finished in third.

That team, though, soon lost Virgil van Dijk for the season, followed by their second- and third-choice center backs, Joel Matip and Joe Gomez, respectively. This team has still had its club-record signing, Alexander Isak, on the field for only 24 total Premier League minutes. And though the one match he started also required a last-second winner, at home against Atletico Madrid in the Champions League, it was also the one game where Liverpool dominated after they led. With Liverpool leading, the shot count was close, 12 to 9 in favor of the hosts, but Liverpool created 1.32 expected goals to Atletico’s 0.38.

As it stands, though, Arsenal have played about as well as Liverpool did last season, while Liverpool have played about as well as Arsenal did. Their current adjusted goal differentials are nearly the same as the other team’s full-season marks from last year. Over the past 10 seasons, the best a team has done while playing at Liverpool’s current level — somewhere between a 0.5 and 0.8 adjusted goal differential — was Leicester’s 81 points in their 5,000-to-1 championship season. While the worst a team with a plus-1-or-better adjusted goal differential has done was Liverpool’s 78 points in 2017-18.

Now, it could happen, but the overwhelmingly likely outcome of Liverpool and Arsenal maintaining their current performance levels is that Arsenal wins the league. Given how Bukayo Saka, William Saliba, and Martin Odegaard have already missed significant time and how they’ve already played Liverpool and Manchester City, it seems unlikely that Arsenal decline too much from here on out. So, hang on to their current lead, Liverpool will have to improve; they’ll need to stop falling apart once they take a lead, and they’ll need to start winning some matches before the 85th minute.

But while all those last-second winners can’t be relied upon for the rest of the season, they did happen. Dominik Szoboszlai briefly harnessed the power of gravity against Arsenal, in a way no Arsenal player did against Liverpool. Szoboszlai, too, had the presence of mind to dummy a pass and create a massive opening for Rio Ngumoha to slot home the winner against Newcastle. And because Liverpool have executed in so many of these high-leverage moments already, they’ve built a sizable cushion.

They need to be better from now through the end of the season if they want to win the title, but they don’t actually need to be better than Arsenal. They just need to be four points worse.

The Athle­tics Federation of Pakistan (AFP) has written a letter to Salman Butt, the coach of star javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem, seeking the reasons behind a sharp decline in the athlete’s performance including his below-par show in the World Athletics Champ­ionship held in Tokyo last week.

The 28-year-old Arshad, who made entire Pakistan feel proud by winning gold medal with a record 92.97-metre throw at the 2024 Paris Olympics, finished a poor 10th in the world championship.

The AFP has asked several questions from Salman and directed him to submit his reply by Oct 5.

After Arshad’s gold medal show in Paris last year, the AFP had disassociated itself from his training programme and his participation in world events, giving the athlete and Salman liberty to take their decisions.

When the Pakistan Sports Board handed a cheque of Rs10 million to the AFP for training Arshad early this year.

The federation returned the same with an instruction to directly give it to the athlete.

According to the letter, the AFP asked Salman to submit a report about Arshad’s training activities from September 2024 to August 2025.

The coach was also asked to name the coaches, whose services were hired for Arshad during the said period, plus details about his participation in international events in the same time.

Salman was also asked to explain why Arshad did not participate in any Diamond League meetings, and whether he hired the services of any foreign coach or trainer during this period.

Moreover, Salman was required to submit the report of Arshad’s high performance training and his physical fitness level, and also if the coach made any contact with the federation or any other national institution during the past year or so.

Liverpool are looking to strengthen their defense with a move for Bayern Munich center back Dayot Upamecano, while Barcelona have added Borussia Dortmund striker Serhou Guirassy to their shortlist. Join us for the latest transfer news and rumors from around the globe.

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TRENDING RUMORS

– Bild reports that Liverpool are lining up a move for Bayern Munich center back Dayot Upamecano. The Reds are exploring options as they look to reinforce their defense, and they could challenge Real Madrid in the race for the 26-year-old France international, who will soon enter the final six months of his contract at the Allianz Arena. The Bundesliga champions view Upamecano as a key player and are expected to begin contract talks amid hopes of signing him to an extension, but are aware clubs from outside Germany can negotiate a pre-contract agreement with him in January.

– Barcelona have added Borussia Dortmund striker Serhou Guirassy to their shortlist, according to Bild. The LaLiga club are reportedly exploring multiple options as they look for a long term successor to 37-year-old Robert Lewandowski, and Guirassy, 29, is the latest to be placed on their radar. Dortmund don’t want to part ways with their star forward, but reports have indicated that there may be a release clause in his contract that allows specific clubs to sign him for €70 million.

– Atletico Madrid midfielder Conor Gallagher will return to the Premier League if he leaves the LaLiga club, says TEAMtalk. Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur have both been linked with the former Chelsea star, and the Red Devils are reported to have opted against a move for him at the end of the summer transfer window. Gallagher, 25, remains a regular for manager Diego Simeone, having made seven appearances across all competitions this season, but could choose to head back to England.

– Tottenham Hotspur are keen to sign on-loan Bayern Munich midfielder João Palhinha on a permanent deal, according to TalkSPORT, and are already inclined to activate the £27m option in his loan deal. Palhinha, 30, has been a standout performer for manager Thomas Frank, with two goals in seven appearances across all competitions this season, and has previous experience of the Premier League with Fulham.

– Chelsea are confident of signing AC Milan and France goalkeeper Mike Maignan, reports TEAMtalk. The Blues are reported to have decided against a move for Gianluigi Donnarumma, who joined Manchester City for €30m from PSG this summer, after placing Maignan at the top of their shortlist. Maignan, 30, will be able to sign a pre-contract agreement when he enters the final six months of his deal at San Siro in January, as the Rossoneri have not made progress over an extension.

EXPERT TAKE

ESPN’s Beth Lindop looks at a possible defensive move for Liverpool.

Liverpool’s need to sign a center back — either in January or next summer — is glaring.

The Premier League champions missed out on Crystal Palace defender Marc Guehi when his £35m transfer collapsed at the 11th hour and there is an expectation they will revisit that deal in the near future. Guehi is available on a free transfer next summer, but an injury to new signing Giovanni Leoni might compel Liverpool to move for the England international in January.

Meanwhile, the future of Ibrahima Konate — who is also out of contract next summer — remains uncertain. With that in mind, Liverpool will be assessing the market for potential opportunities and Upamecano’s pedigree will likely place him on the club’s radar. He is a France international with his best years still ahead of him, however he will just be one of the many defenders Liverpool are monitoring ahead of next summer.

OTHER RUMORS

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Craig Burley’s incredible rant on Mikel Arteta

Craig Burley did not hold back on Arsenal and Mikel Arteta’s comments following their 1-1 draw with Manchester City.

– A blast from the past, but Manchester United are once again being linked with Barcelona midfielder Frenkie de Jong, 28, despite the fact he is close to signing a new contract (Football Insider)

– United are looking to complete a move for Derby County goalkeeper Charlie Hardy. (Sun)

– And United have agreed a deal with Fortaleza midfielder Cristian Orozco, 17, to move once he turns 18 in July. (Athletic)

– Arsenal are working on reaching an agreement over a new contract for winger Bukayo Saka. (Ben Jacobs)

– Real Madrid midfielder Eduardo Camavinga, 22, is considering his future and has been linked with a move to Newcastle. (Football Insider)

– An agreement is close to being finalized between Manchester City and winger Savinho over a new contract, after he was previously linked with Tottenham in the summer. (Fabrizio Romano)

– Contract talks are expected to take place soon between Manchester City and attacking midfielder Phil Foden. (TBR)

– Newcastle midfielder Sandro Tonali remains on the radar of Juventus. (Calciomercato)

– Chelsea, Arsenal, and Manchester City are among the sides watching the situation of Liverpool defender Ibrahima Konate, though he is also being linked with Real Madrid. (TBR)

– Arsenal are looking at Juventus forward Kenan Yildiz, who was the subject of an €80m offer from Chelsea over the summer. (Radio Radio)

– Juventus have added Al-Ahli midfielder Franck Kessie to their shortlist as a potential signing in January. (Gazzetta dello Sport)

– Clubs in Europe are keeping tabs on Flamengo winger Everton. (Ekrem Konur)

– Several Championship clubs have made enquiries to Vitoria regarding striker Mario Gomes. (Rudy Galetti)