Anfield Index

Liverpool Football Club is known for having some legendary central midfielders with names like Ian Callaghan, Graeme Souness, Jan Molby, Xabi Alonso and of course Steven Gerrard. So it goes without saying that anyone coming into the Liverpool midfield has some big shoes to fill.

The summer of 2010 brought about change at Liverpool FC. Rafael Benitez had been relieved of his duties as manager of the club and Roy Hodgson left Fulham to take the reigns at Anfield. Players were coming into the club and some were leaving - most notably Javier Mascherano who left for Barcelona in a deal worth £22 million. Joe Cole, Raul Meireles, Christian Poulsen and Paul Konchesky all arrived at Anfield in what was billed as the 'rebuilding season'.

Another week, another edition of Scouting Stats! The last two editions were very successful with some great feedback for the Premier League Winger Comparison and then last week’s Premier League Centre Back Comparison article. This week we are going to concentrate on the top Premier League left back. We were going to only look at those that were linked with Liverpool FC recently: Jose Enrique, Leighton Baines and Gael Clichy. However my arm was twisted and I’ve added, arguably, two of the best left sided fullbacks in the league at the moment: Patrice Evra and Ashley Cole.

Width has long been a problem for Liverpool and a winger has been near the top of all fans wish lists pretty much since John Barnes was in his prime. Despite more signings likely to come this summer, it surprised a lot of people that Jordan Henderson, the young Sunderland midfielder, was the first to be brought in.

The man between the sticks is forgotten about far too often in football. Just look at Barcelona, the best team in the world right now. Victor Valdes may be a quality goalkeeper, but he is very rarely given the chance to prove that due to the nature of Barcelona’s football. As Ian Rush famously said, “It’s best being a striker. If you miss five then score the winner, you’re a hero. The goalkeeper can play a blinder, then let one in… and he’s a villain.”

Liverpool FC Transfers are the talk of twitter at the moment with the transfer window now in full swing and, shockingly, with Liverpool FC completing its first piece of business of the summer, it promises to be a summer to remember. However a major talking point has been of the pursuit of Blackburn Rovers’ young central defender, Phil Jones. We’ll be looking at Phil Jones’ stats a little later on in this article. First up we’ll be comparing the renowned defenders from the top three and also comparing them to Liverpool’s centre backs, Daniel Agger and Martin Skrtel. We'll then look at the central defenders that are more likely to be available for transfer.

So no doubt everyone has heard about Liverpool Football Club’s newest addition; Jordan Henderson. It was announced on Wednesday 8 June 2011 that a fee has been agreed between Sunderland and Liverpool. This is speculated to be £13m + David Ngog who is valued at £7m.

Dirk Kuyt has been quite an important player for Liverpool Football Club. Ever since he signed in the summer of 2006, he has played an integral part in each season.   In his first season at the club, the Dutchman hit the back of the net 12 times in the league - a fairly decent amount...

Transfers are the main focus of every summer break when the Premier League season has ended. Liverpool FC and Kenny Dalglish appear to be lining up a whole hoard of transfers and will be focusing their priorities on wingers this summer. This article will be looking at how Premier League wingers have performed  in...

One of our twitter followers gave us an idea of a blog post earlier on today when they asked how many points Liverpool had achieved from the three football clubs that were relegated from the Premier League this year. To take it a step further we've drawn up some stats for our readers to show where Liverpool picked up points this year and pointed out a few trends too.

Raul Meireles is arguably Roy Hodgson’s best signing. Well we never would have said that in December 2010 but since the return of the King he has been exceptional especially with Gerrard was out injured.

NOTE: Before I go into detail in this article, I just want to explain a few things. The numbers, figures, statistics, and transfer fee's are all taken from a combination of; www.Wikipedia.org , www.premierleague.com, and www.lfchistory.net. It is also worth noting I have only included players who were 18 or under when they signed...

From the moment the season ended last year, there was a clear indication there was to be a lot of changes forthcoming at Anfield. Rafael Benitez was relieved of his duties after finishing 7th in the Premier League and failing to qualify for the Champions League knockout stages. Former owners Tom Hicks and George...

Who would've thought that we would end the 2010/11 season off fighting for European qualification and having probably the best attacking duo in the Premier League? A look at the effect of Kenny Dalglish

Despite being at the risk of repeating ourselves from the article "Where the game was won" we just wanted to post some match stats from the Fulham Vs Liverpool game. These stats are normally available to our subscribers but we have used them in match reports before so we thought we'd share them even though we've already done our match report in the article mentioned above.

The rest of the Premier League took note as fantastic Liverpool gave a five star performance at Craven Cottage last night. Liverpool scored five goals with another hat-trick from Maxi Rodriguez, Luis Suarez scoring in his second consecutive and Dirk Kuyt matching a 10 year record by scoring in five consecutive games. Liverpool were...

As the end of the season approaches some of our thoughts turn to who is Liverpool's player of the season. I've voted on various polls on blogs, websites and forums. Two players always seem to be on top Lucas and Kuyt. Lucas now a favourite with the fans has to be one...

Twitter can only get you so far when trying to explain your thoughts on a lot of things, limited to 140 characters, it's difficult, especially when I see so many people being very optimistic and so many "ITK"'s contradicting each other with whatever rumours there may be. So I thought I'd look at what...

In this three part series of articles I will be looking at the statistics behind Liverpool's best and worst players in each position. After already conceding four more goals than last season, with three games still to be played, Liverpool's defenders have no doubt come under questioning this season. By starting to look at our defenders'...

We were asked a question on our twitter account; Which player is passed the ball the most? It was a question we couldn't answer as we didn't hold these stats. After some analysis and searching we've found some of the answers thanks to the Guardian.co.uk's excellent Chalkboard service which is run by Opta Data (just...

For a number of years now there has been much debate about who exactly makes up our best central defensive partnership. The 3 main players in this debate are the long serving Jamie Carragher, the misunderstood Martin Skrtel and the mostly injured Daniel Agger.

THE RACE for the Premier League's sole Europa League qualification place has fast become one that neither side really seems to want to win. Not least because the once beloved UEFA Cup has devolved into a cheap imitation of the Champions League with unenviable jaunts to former Eastern Bloc backwaters, but also the upheaval that...

Unlike previous seasons Liverpool have had to use three captains, due to injuries and suspension to our normal candidate Steven Gerrard. So far in Gerrard’s absence Jamie Carragher Liverpool’ s vice captain has taken the step up, but in both of their absences fan’s favourite Pepe Reina has made the arm band his own. But which...

I Called It! Another convincing victory for the mighty Reds at Anfield. We are now fifth overtaking Spurs on goal difference. Although Spurs have a game in hand Liverpool's quest for an European spot is back in their own hands as Spurs still have to come to Anfield. Liverpool were in control in...

Liverpool FC won their penultimate game at Anfield for the 2010/2011 season and took 5th spot in the Barclays Premier League meaning if they won all of their remaining games they'd have the chance to finish in a European spot which was looking increasing unlikely after the loss to West Brom a few weeks ago. Goals from Maxi Rodriguez, Dirk Kuyt and Luis Suarez earned the win in which the scoreline didn't tell the full story.

It has certainly been a rough couple of years for Liverpool FC.  First there were the unwanted owners doing their upmost to ruin the club and then came the infighting at all levels; the boardroom, the coaching staff and players.  As if these problems weren’t enough, Liverpool were having to keep up with the...

We could sit here all day, and debate what areas of our current squad needs strengthening. We could also discuss potential targets, and how realistic a chance of a certain team accepting a bid, and a certain player joining.   In fact, I have read many a...

Over the years Liverpool have had some of the most accomplished penalty takers in the game, take the shot from 12 yards for them. Names like Neal, Mølby, Liddell and Gerrard, the list could go on. Overall Liverpool have had 75 different successful spot kick takers, since being founded in 1892. Liverpool have scored a total of 462 spot kicks since their first game nearly 119 years ago. The most prolific of our 75 spot kick takers was Jan Mølby, who converted 42 of his 45 penalties, closely follow by Phil Neal who scored 38, missing 13.

Since Dirk Kuyt’s signing for Liverpool in the summer of 2006 he has gained many plaudits but has also come across his fair share of negative press. For Liverpool fans he has been nothing short of brilliant since the £10million pound move from Holland. But this season again he has really risen above the pack and...

    We could sit here all day, and debate what areas of our current squad needs strengthening. We could also discuss potential targets, and how realistic a chance of a certain team accepting a bid, and a certain player joining.   In fact, I have read many a debate on the...