Why RB Leipzig could SURPRISE Liverpool in Champions League clash

Liverpool travel to the east of Germany to face RB Leipzig in the Champions League on Wednesday night.

The game is very interestingly set up. Liverpool top the Premier League and sit pretty with six points in fifth place of the Champions League mega-group. Leipzig sit second in the Bundesliga, undefeated and joint on points with Bayern Munich but with a worse goal difference.

It is the Champions League where they have been undone this season, holding zero points and sitting in 29th place.

On the face of it, Leipzig look promising. They have Bundesliga 11 goals but have importantly only conceded twice, both in a 3-2 win over last season’s league champions Bayer Leverkusen. Yet, they have shipped five goals in the Champions League.

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Their team is full of rising stars - Liverpool-linked Xavi Simons, Benjamin Šeško and Loïs Openda lead an attack that has the potential to challenge any defence in the world.

Do Leipzig pose Liverpool a threat?

But when you look closer, you start to realise that perhaps their great start isn’t sustainable. They have 10.9 xG this season, meaning their league-ninth 11 goals are a fair representation, but they have conceded 7.9 xG whilst, as mentioned before, only conceding twice.

This points to a team that are riding their luck whilst not actually having the acumen to challenge Bayern as they currently are.

This becomes more clear when you actually watch them play. There is no more stark example than their 1-0 win on the opening day of the Bundesliga season over VfL Bochum.

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Early on in the game, goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi - who has been Leipzig’s best player this season according to FotMob - miscontrolled the ball, handing it to Bochum striker Moritz Broschinski. Gulacsi managed to save the initial effort, whilst Leipzig defender Castello Lukeba cleared a rebound off the line in a scenario that amounted to 0.57 xG.

Bochum had another good chance that Philipp Hoffmann should have done better with 15 yards out, before Leipzig’s Antonio Nusa scored with edge-of-the-box effort that flew straight through the Bochum keeper’s hands.

A Bochum equaliser was then denied when Leipzig captain Willi Orban hacked down Bochum’s Myron Boadu when he was one-on-one with Gulacsi in the 84th minute. Orban got a red card but Leipzig got the win.

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Leipzig's Luck

And the luck has continued. Leipzig’s three goals against Leverkusen came from just 1.1xG, with Openda’s good finish making it 2-2 from a tight angle (0.12 xG!) before scoring a truly spectacular winner from 25-yards out. Openda has begun to make a bit of a habit out of scoring from acute angles, picking up the winner in a 1-0 run out against Heidenheim in similar fashion whilst Leipzig didn’t concede from chances equalling 1 xG.

And Bundesliga new boys St. Pauli could have taken all three points against Leipzig, as attackers Jackson Irvine and Johannes Eggestein both missed glaring chances in a 0-0 draw where St. Pauli amassed 1.4 xG.

It is still early in the season and these could easily be chalked down to variance. Yet there is realistically a scenario in which Leipzig lost to Bochum and St. Pauli whilst drawing to Leverkusen and Heidenheim, leaving them on nine points and around 10th in the Bundesliga.

That is a much less frightening proposition than facing a team keeping pace with Bayern Munich and is something Liverpool must understand going into this game.

Unsustainable in the Champions League

It appears to be in the Champions League where the variance is coming back to haunt the German side.

They almost got away with it again against Atletico Madrid. Leipzig looked to see out the game 1-1, surviving a mad goalmouth scramble from another Gulacsi error, as well as Angel Correa flicking a cross off the inside of the post that could have hit a number of players and headed into the back of the net. It was only a 90th minute header from Jose Gimenez that gave Atleti the deserved win.

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Their 3-2 loss to Juventus, however, was where it really came into play. Despite Šeško’s brace, Juve’s Dusan Vlahovic scored twice from 0.09 xG - a tidy front post flick and a stunning 20 yarder over Gulacsi’s head - before Francisco Conceição parted Lukeba and Benjamin Henrichs in Moses-like fashion before finding the far corner in a sensational solo effort.

Because of this, it is difficult to know what to expect out of Leipzig. They are a lively, scrappy team going forward. Simons, Šeško and Openda play with the freedom of three men yet to reach their mid-20’s, but that is also reflected in the lack of control you consistently see when they have the ball.

And whilst Orban and Lukeba do make for a good centre-back pairing, they regularly fail to deal with balls played across the box, progressive passes into the final third and can be forced into mistakes when playing out from the back.

Liverpool may be able to exploit the final point if the midfield can replicate the intense pressing seen against Manchester United earlier this season, whilst the talent on both wings should see multiple chances to exploit an indecisive back line.

So on the surface RB Leipzig may seem like a tough opponent in great form. But the reality may actually surprise Liverpool, in a good way.

Results are never given in football but this is a game that Liverpool can, and should, do serious damage in.