NO FUN AT ALL IF YOU CAN EXPECT THE EXPECTED...

ONE of the most baffling new statistics in football is ‘expected goals.’

Boffins can work out using a mathematical equation how many goals a striker or team should score in a match.

It’s fair to say I’m not totally convinced but Opta’s stats are normally so good and reliable that you can bet, over the course of the season, they’ll be proved correct.

But where perhaps everything falls down is that football should never be predictable, it should never deliver what we expect – we love it because it often produces the unexpected. That is the whole point.

If you take Liverpool this season, then how on earth do they produce their first goalless draw of the season against Manchester United on Saturday and then three days later put seven past Slovenian side Maribor in the Champions League? It makes no sense.

That is the beauty of football. Yes, different standards of opposition but Liverpool largely used the same set of players so how can they go from missing the target to scoring seven?

Kop boss Jurgen Klopp has taken a lot of stick this season because of Liverpool’s failings but under him the Reds do entertain – isn’t that what football should be about?

Klopp is following the new world order of top coaches and teams by playing expansive, attacking football.

Manchester City (above, celebrating) have smashed 29 goals in eight Premier League games. Under Pep Guardiola they have become the great entertainers.

There has definitely been a power shift from pragmatic football to entertainment and some managers accept conceding as long as they score one more than the opposition.

Jose Mourinho copped flak for shutting up shop at Anfield but there is no right or wrong way to play. It’s just that football normally follows a trend. At the moment three at the back is fashionable. It will change at some point in the next two seasons.

Where Mourinho can be questioned is Manchester United’s record at their top-six rivals. Under him, United have managed one goal in their last six away games against last season’s top six.

That will not strike fear into opponents in the way that City, and perhaps Liverpool, are currently doing.