2026/2027 league phase

Champions League

Club page
Champions League · Club page
Liverpool
Head coach: Andoni Iraola · 4-2-3-1
Rank
5th
Pts
6
P
2
Form
🔥 Excellent

The essentials at a glance

The summary of this page: estimated level of play, form trend and qualitative verdict. For the details, head to the other tabs.

Editors' ratings
9/10
Attack
7/10
Defence
10/10
Form
10/10
Confidence / mood
Current risk:—

5th with 6 pts from 2 matches: 2 wins, 0 draws, 0 defeats.

8 goals scored, 4 conceded.

At Telefoot's microphone, Bradley Barcola returns to his transfer to Liverpool for 145 million euros, his adaptation to the Premier League and his ambitions with the Reds and the French team.Bradley (...)

Foot Mercato · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

Among them is the duel next Tuesday in one of the European football cots, the Anfield Stadium of Liverpool, which will face the English team with the Villarreal. I find where the yellow team arrives after the victory at home 3-1 to Naples and will be pounded by Polish collegiate Szymon Marciniak, one of the best collegiates in Europe.

Mundo Deportivo · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

But despite a decisive pass during Liverpool's victory against (...)

Foot Mercato · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

Florian Wirtz has given Liverpool a convincing statistical response to the criticism of the last few weeks. The German gamemaker was important to the comeback against Brentford on Saturday and created no less than nine opportunities from open play.

Voetbal International · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

How the team has played recently

Match-by-match results, record and rhythm of the current season.

Latest matches
Wvs LASK Linz (A) · 6-3
Wvs Club Atlético de Madrid (H) · 2-1
WW
8 scored / 4 conceded over 2 matches played
Rest: 4 days since the last match · 1 match played in the last 15 days
Home form
1W - 0D - 0L
Away form
1W - 0D - 0L
Statistics

Computed from this season's scores, every time the page is shown.

Goals scored per match
4.0
Goals conceded per match
2.0
At home
2 scored · 1 conceded in 1 match
Away
6 scored · 3 conceded in 1 match
Over 2.5 goals
2 of 2
Both teams score
2 of 2
Clean sheets
0 of 2
Failed to score
0 of 2
Cumulative points vs league average

Not enough matchdays recorded yet for this curve — history builds up with every standings refresh.

How Liverpool play

System, playing identity, and what sets the team apart at both ends of the pitch.

Playing identity
Preferred system
4-2-3-1
Philosophy
Attacking strengths
Defensive solidity
Pressing
Transitions
Strength
Weakness

The mood around the club, and who is missing

Internal climate, relationship with the supporters, and known absences before the next match.

Mood
Squad confidence
Fragile but not fundamentally damaged. Two opening draws leave Liverpool 13th and Andoni Iraola has identified the problem himself: his players “have to start stronger” and must not “wait for the first goal to be more aggressive”. The Basque did get two pieces of good news this week: the announced availability of Bradley Barcola, from whom he mainly expects the right attitude, and Cody Gakpo staying despite Manchester City's move, a player he describes as “in a good place, physically and mentally”. The trip to Portman Road looks like the clearest chance to get going, before the Champions League opener against Atlético five days later.
Coach / players / board relationship
Nothing suggests friction between Andoni Iraola and his board, but the head coach no longer hides his choices. He has publicly welcomed having four wingers and expects versatility from them, which closes the debate opened by Barcola's arrival on an already well-stocked flank. Sky Sports rate the window 7 out of 10 and their correspondent Vinny O'Connor points to two acknowledged gaps: depth at full-back, where the failure of the Malo Gusto pursuit leaves Jérémie Frimpong without an obvious deputy, and defensive midfield. No public response from the board to those reservations has been found.
Mood with the supporters
The mood is not precisely documented by the sources consulted; the context is one of a summer of upheaval (Slot sacked, Mohamed Salah leaving for Trabzonspor, along with Konaté and Robertson) and a start to the season without a win.
Pressure on the head coach
Still low in terms of his position, Andoni Iraola having only just been appointed, but expectations are rising fast. Two draws, 13th place, £198m of investment making Liverpool the fourth biggest spender in the league and a Barcola transfer among the five most expensive in Premier League history: the margin for patience is narrow. September's schedule, with Ipswich, Atlético Madrid and then Tottenham in the League Cup, will say very quickly whether the post-Salah transition is settling.
Club objectives
No verified statement of the club's official objectives was found. The scale of investment (Barcola at up to £123m, the club's second most expensive transfer after Isak) points to an ambition to return to the very top; Liverpool are in the Champions League against Inter, Atlético, Porto, Brugge, Villarreal, Fenerbahçe, Lens and LASK.
Recent internal tensions
Bradley Barcola's profile divides observers: Jamie Carragher pointed out that he is a left winger when the position that needed strengthening was the right.
Absences
InjuredHugo Ekitike — Ruptured Achilles tendon, no return date given.
InjuredGiovanni Leoni — Cruciate ligament rupture, no return date given.
InjuredConor Bradley — Knee, out since January; return estimated for around 2 January 2027.
InjuredJoe Gomez — Muscle injury since a friendly on 26 July; a return to training announced for next week, with a comeback targeted before the international break.

Before kick-off

What to know before the next match: statistical form, qualitative analysis, and a computed estimate of the 1/X/2 probabilities.

Next match

Liverpool — Villarreal CF

At homeTuesday 20 October at 21:00Matchday 3
In 2 days. Kick-off time confirmed by the league. Paris time · football-data.org fixtures.

Prediction, odds and form of both teams →

What the press says
  • Árbitro de mal recuerdo en el Liverpool-VillarrealThis Sunday the UEFA has made known the collegiates of the third day of the league of Champions. Among them is the duel next Tuesday in one of the European football cots, the Anfield Stadium of Liverpool, which will face the English team with the Villarreal. I find where the yellow team arrives after the victory at home 3-1 to Naples and will be pounded by Polish collegiate Szymon Marciniak, one of the best collegiates in Europe.Mundo Deportivo · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated
  • ‘I suffer a lot’: Villarreal owner Fernando Roig on not enjoying games and the prospect of LiverpoolIt will be a tense time for club’s president despite the Champions League game at Anfield offering a symbol of how far they have come The first time Fernando Roig watched Villarreal play as their president, he sat in the stand at a tiny whitewashed ground that had concrete fever and was half empty. It was a Sunday night in the second division, they lost 3-0 to Badajoz, and he didn’t enjoy it much. But then, he doesn’t ever enjoy it much. Even on Tuesday at Anfield, he will not: into his 30th year, the longest presidency in Europe, that is about the only thing that hasn’t changed. More than 1,000 games and still it happens. “I don’t get nervous. It’s worse: I get worried, very anxious,” he says. “I suffer a lot. Continue reading...The Guardian — Football · 18 Oct 2026
Prediction
EstimateLiverpool — Villarreal CF
58 %
1 · Liverpool
17 %
X · draw
25 %
2 · Villarreal CF
In-house calculation, from this page's standings data alone: 2 matches played by Liverpool, 2 matches by Villarreal CF. Confidence: low
The calculation rests on only 2 matches per team. Shrinkage deliberately pulls the estimate close to a neutral split: it barely tells the two teams apart.
The formula, in plain words — with this match's figures
  1. League average. 141 goals scored over 68 team-matches played (34 teams taken into account), i.e. μ = 2.07 goal scored per team per match. This is the reference point: everything that follows is expressed relative to it.
  2. Attacking and defensive strengths. Goals scored (or conceded) per match, divided by μ. 1.00 = exactly average; in defence, above 1.00 means “concedes more than average”.
    TeamGoalsRawKept
    Liverpool — attack8 in 2 matches1.931.23
    Liverpool — defence4 in 2 matches0.960.99
    Villarreal CF — attack5 in 2 matches1.211.05
    Villarreal CF — defence4 in 2 matches0.960.99
    The “Kept” column is the result of shrinkage towards the mean: weight = P / (P + 6), i.e. 0.25 for Liverpool and 0.25 for Villarreal CF. The rest of the weight goes to the league average. This is what stops a lone 5-0 from producing an attack at 3.3 times the average — and hence a 95% probability.
  3. Home advantage (γ). Measured on the league itself: 2.47 goal scored on average by the host against 1.68 by the visitor, over the 34 fixtures present in each team's last 5 matches. Raw ratio 1.47; shrunk towards 1 (weight 0.36, on the log of the ratio) then capped at 1.25 → γ = 1.15. Shrinkage goes towards 1, i.e. no advantage at all: while the sample is small, the model does not assert a home advantage it cannot measure.
  4. Venue correction, specific to each team. Drawn from the home/away split: points per match at the venue concerned are compared to points per match over all fixtures, with stronger shrinkage (weight = P / (P + 8)) and a bound of ±12%.
    Liverpool at home: 3.00 pts/match versus 3.00 overall over 1 match → ×1.000
    Villarreal CF away: 0.00 pts/match versus 1.50 overall over 1 match → ×0.889
  5. Expected goals. One side's attack is set against the other's defence. γ applies to the host only: applying it the other way round too would count the home advantage twice.
    λLiverpool = 2.07 × 1.23 × 0.99 × 1.15 × 1.000 = 2.91
    λVillarreal CF = 2.07 × 1.05 × 0.99 × 0.889 = 1.92
  6. Poisson grid. Probability of every exact score from 0-0 to 8-8, assuming the two goal totals are independent, then adding up the cells: home win 58.4%, draw 17.1%, away win 24.5% — displayed rounded to whole numbers so that they add up to exactly 100. Most likely exact score in the grid: 2-1 (only 6.5%, which says enough about how unpredictable an exact score is).
Limits of this model — they are not anecdotal.
  • It only knows goals and a venue. Neither absences, suspensions, line-ups, fatigue, stakes, weather nor club context enter the calculation — while the other tabs of this page show that they matter.
  • The assumption that the two goal totals are independent is false in reality: it slightly underestimates tight scores, hence the draw.
  • γ is measured over a rolling window (each team's last 5 matches), not over the whole season.
  • The shrinkage constants (6, 60, 8) and the bounds are choices, not measurements. They were tuned to be cautious early in the season; they were not calibrated on a results history, as none is available here.
  • No after-the-fact evaluation has been made: at this stage, nobody knows whether this model is better or worse calibrated than another.
What other sources say
No external source has been collected for this match. That is the normal state: readings are taken by hand, and an empty box is better than an unverified figure.
This block shows probability estimates, not predictions, and carries no advisory value. The in-house estimate is the result of a formula applied to a small sample; the figures from external sources are reproduced as they were collected, without their method having been verified.

The full squad

The professional squad by position, captain marked with an armband.

Squad not documented for this team yet.

What has been said recently

Chronological feed of verified information about the club.

rss18 Oct 2026
Wirtz answers Liverpool to criticism, but discussion about role remains
Source: Voetbal International
rss18 Oct 2026
Graeme Souness sends Virgil van Dijk contract demand and unearths Liverpool issue
Source: Mirror Football
rss18 Oct 2026
Liverpool news: Florian Wirtz transfer decision reached as World Cup star's agent confirms Reds interest
Source: Mirror Football
rss17 Oct 2026
Wirtz delivers but remains Liverpool's conundrum
Source: BBC Sport
rss17 Oct 2026
City soma 7.º triunfo seguido, Liverpool bate Brentford com reviravolta
Source: Notícias ao Minuto — Desporto
rss17 Oct 2026
City soma sétimo triunfo seguido, Liverpool bate Brentford com reviravolta
Source: RTP Desporto
Club3 Sep 2026
Liverpool open matchday 3 on Friday 4 September at 20:00 at Portman Road, at promoted Ipswich, needing at last to claim a first win: the Reds have only two points and sit 13th.
Source: Football Web Pages
Head coach3 Sep 2026
Andoni Iraola has made the start of matches his priority before Ipswich: the team “has to start stronger” and must not “wait for the first goal to be more aggressive”. On Cody Gakpo, kept in the end after Manchester City's interest, he was relieved: “He is in a good place, physically and mentally. I am happy to keep Cody, he is a valuable player.” He also says he is pleased to have four wingers and expects versatility from them.
Source: Yahoo Sports
Head coach3 Sep 2026
On Bradley Barcola, Andoni Iraola announced that availability was all but assured: “He is training well with us and if all goes well in training today, he will definitely be available tomorrow.” He was more cautious about a start: “I see him in a good place. He has trained with us. It is true that he has not had any pre-season minutes.”
Source: Empire of the Kop
European competition3 Sep 2026
The Champions League league-phase schedule is set: Liverpool host Atlético Madrid on 9 September, travel to LASK on 14 October, host Villarreal on 20 October, travel to Fenerbahçe on 4 November and to Brugge on 25 November, host Porto on 9 December, go to Inter on 19 January and finish at home against Lens on 27 January.
Source: UEFA
Injury3 Sep 2026
The defence is badly depleted: Giovanni Leoni has a cruciate ligament rupture with no return date and Conor Bradley, with a knee problem, is not expected back before January 2027; forward Hugo Ekitike is out until mid-October.
Source: SportsGambler
Injury2 Sep 2026
Unavailable list before Ipswich: Hugo Ekitike is sidelined by a ruptured Achilles tendon with no return date, Conor Bradley is not expected before 2 January 2027, Giovanni Leoni is out with a cruciate ligament rupture. Federico Chiesa is a major doubt, Andoni Iraola referring to “a small muscle injury” in his back, and Joe Gomez has not played since a friendly against Sunderland on 26 July. No suspensions.
Source: Sports Mole
Other2 Sep 2026
Probable line-up put forward by Sports Mole: Alisson; Frimpong, Jacquet, Van Dijk, Kerkez; Mac Allister, Szoboszlai; Gakpo, Wirtz, Muñoz; Isak. Jérémie Frimpong keeps the right flank after the Malo Gusto pursuit fell through, Jeremy Jacquet, 21, partners Virgil van Dijk at centre-back, and Bradley Barcola is expected on the bench, along with Rio Ngumoha.
Source: Sports Mole
Institutional2 Sep 2026
Sky Sports rate Liverpool's window 7 out of 10. Vinny O'Connor judges that the club “ticked a certain number of boxes” with Bradley Barcola and Victor Muñoz, but feels the window “could have been better” on depth at full-back and in defensive midfield.
Source: Sky Sports
Institutional2 Sep 2026
Liverpool are the fourth biggest spenders of the summer in the Premier League with £198m, in a record market of £3.46bn. Bradley Barcola's transfer, at up to £123m, is among the five most expensive in the league's history.
Source: Sports Mole
Transfers1 Sep 2026
At the close of the window, Andoni Iraola also registered the arrival of young Lucca Brughmans, signed from Genk for around £30m, while Harvey Elliott was loaned to Valencia.
Source: Sky Sports
News last verified on 18 Oct 2026. Sources: sports press (L'Équipe, Le Parisien, Foot Mercato, regional press…) and official club websites — see the link on each item.
Editorial content (playing style, mood, absences, external prediction sources) last verified on 3 Sep 2026. The standings/form data above are refreshed automatically — as is the 1/X/2 estimate, recomputed on every view.