MACD analysis: Man City – Liverpool (03.01.2019)

The 2018/19 season in the Premier League started entirely normal. After a record-breaking season Manchester City was of course favoured to win again the title with Liverpool just having an option as the runner-up. But things changed in December and, according to both coaches, we can expect the match between “the best team in the world” and “the best team in the world”.

So which match could be more usefull to take a look at the MACD analysis for both teams and get a better feeling how this type of analysis can be used to identify the performance trend of a team.

Manchester City analysis

With about 2.8 goals per match in the last season Manchester City beat the record of Chelsea in 2009/10. The MACD line indicates that this was a steady trend over the whole season. Man City was able to increase the average number of scored goals from the beginning till the end and continued this trend also in the new season. The MACD line fluctuates around the signal line, which tells us, that there were some small performance ups and downs. But overall it stays in a positive value range. Just having a look at the latest games, we can see the MACD line just falls below the signal line. So Man City currently has again a performance dip. But it is currently unclear, whether it is again just a small dip or whether the long term trend is now over.

The performance for the number of conceded goals does not show such a steady trend. But they were also able to reduce the number of conceded goals throw the last season. Way more interesting is the performance in the last games. Since beginning of November the MACD line and the short term weighted average increase rapidly as they conceded more goals as in the games before. The signal line crossover mid of November and the centerline crossover in mid of December indicate, that Man City currently has a defensive performance problem with a strong momentum.

Liverpool analysis

Liverpools away attacking performance is not as strong as the home attacking performance of Man City. Liverpool got a high in December 2017. Over the rest of the season the average number of scored goals was decreasing. This trend could be stopped since beginning of November and the average is now increasing again. Currently the long term weighted average shows about 1.9 scored goals per away match.

But what is much more impressive is the away defensive performance of Liverpool since October 2017. On the 10th October 2017 they lost 4:1 at Tottemham. At this point they got an EMA 34 of 1.7 conceded away goals per match. This value decreased to 0.9 conceded away goals per match in December 2018. That’s a very strong trend, even without any fluctuations around the signal line.

And that’s exactly what Jurgen Klopp tried to achieve by signing Virgil Van Dijk in January 2018. Liverpools attack was already very impressive, but now also the defence is on another level.

Conclusion

Man City got the best home offense in the Premier League, without a doubt. And that’s why they will be of course favoured in that match. But the December results and the current performance trends show, that there may be no better chance for Liverpool to gain the probable most important points for their first Premier League title since 1990. It will be interesting to see, what the best home offence can do against the best away defence and whether Man City’s bad defensive momentum will continue.

If you have further questions, feel free to leave a comment or contact me @Mo_Nbg.