With only three league matches in January it didn’t seem worth doing the usual monthly Goals DNA round-up, so we’re back with an edition which covers the first two months of 2022.

And even though we don’t include the domestic cup competitions thanks to the lack of detailed data (which deducts six matches from this period) there have still been plenty of goals. We have 22 of them, scored and/or assisted by 15 players – one of whom wasn’t at the club when January began – and they include diving headers, overhead kicks and one which set a new record for the club.

But we’ll begin with an aspect of play which most people would consider the defining hallmark of Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool.

High turnovers

“Gegenpressing lets you win back the ball nearer to the goal. It’s only one pass away from a really good opportunity. No playmaker in the world can be as good as a good gegenpressing situation, and that’s why it’s so important.”

JÜRGEN KLOPP

Sadio Mané’s first goal against Leeds at Anfield was of minor interest in one respect as it was the fifth Liverpool have scored in the league in 2021/22 which orginated from what Opta call a high turnover (which is a sequence “that starts in open play and begins 40m or less from the opponent’s goal”).

This is notable as it’s the joint-most any team has scored at the time of writing – Leicester are the other team with five – and the Reds only had four such goals in the whole of last season.

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