From the team’s goalscoring exploits to their assist king, how the current side stacks up against the best campaigns under Rafael Benitez and the rest of the last eight, he breaks down the numbers behind a brilliant run in Europe so far…
Liverpool have reached the Champions League quarter-finals for the first time since 2008-09 but despite the club’s relative lack of recent experience in the competition, none of the other seven remaining sides will want to face the Reds when the draw for the last eight is made on Friday.
That isn’t just due to the fearsome reputation Anfield holds on European nights either. Jürgen Klopp and his squad have been tearing up the record books across the continent this season, and have posted some very impressive numbers at both ends of the pitch.
Perhaps the most notable of these statistics is the 28 goals that Liverpool have scored in the Champions League proper this season. That’s the most of any team in the tournament in 2017-18, and at least six more than every other club in the draw for the quarter-finals.
The Reds also put six past Hoffenheim in the qualifying round, and the total of 34 goals in European competition makes this their joint-top scoring continental campaign. Benitez’s 2007-08 vintage also scored 34 times on their way to an extra-time defeat against Chelsea in the semi-finals.
With at least two games still to play, it looks likely this will become the club’s outright top scoring European season and given there have been 42 such campaigns, that’s no mean feat.
While the goals have been shared out among eight players this season, it is the Reds’ front three who have weighed in with more than half of them. Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane have both got six in the Champions League proper, but it’s Roberto Firmino who leads the way with seven.
In Liverpool’s nine previous Champions League campaigns, one of their players scored six or more goals on four occasions. Peter Crouch was the first, with half-a-dozen in 2006-07, before both Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres matched that mark 12 months later.
The skipper went one goal better in 2008-09, so as it stands Gerrard is tied with Firmino for the most Champions League goals by a Liverpool player in one season. But there’s every chance the current No.9 will set a new record between now and May.
The forwards have been ably assisted by Liverpool having creative options all over the pitch. Both Trent Alexander-Arnold and Alberto Moreno are among the 31 full-backs with a Champions League assist this season. Moreno has actually set up three goals, which is the joint-most by any defender in the competition during this campaign.
But the real star on the creativity front has been James Milner, as he has provided an incredible six assists for teammates this term. That’s the most by any player in the competition in 2017-18, but the record-setting doesn’t end there.
Milner’s tally of six assists is also the most by a Liverpool player in any of the team’s 10 Champions League campaigns. He has also become the first Red to tee up goals for five different colleagues, as Emre Can, Philippe Coutinho, Firmino, Mane and Salah have all been set up by the 32-year-old.
This phenomenal run of creativity puts the midfielder joint-second in the Reds’ chart of total assists at Europe’s top table, alongside Fabio Aurelio. It is Gerrard way out in front with 12, but his best individual season for assists was 2007-08, when he got four.
There have only been three occasions in the past decade when any player from any club has topped a total of six Champions League assists in one season. Franck Ribery got seven for Bayern Munich in 2008-09, before Zlatan Ibrahimovic matched that with Paris Saint-Germain in 2012-13.
Neymar set a modern record of eight with Barcelona last season, but what are the chances Milner matches the Brazilian maestro before the end of this campaign? It definitely shouldn’t be ruled out.
The impressive numbers aren’t limited to the attacking end of the team. Loris Karius has five clean sheets in the competition; no goalkeeper has more. The club’s top performance for opposition blanks in the Champions League came in 2001-02, when Jerzy Dudek and Chris Kirkland kept eight clean sheets between them.
Liverpool played 14 matches that season, though, so there’s still a chance the current crop can match their defensive exploits. Whether they do or not, the fact only one team - Barcelona - left in the Champions League have conceded fewer goals than the Reds bodes well for their chances of progressing further.
With impressive performances all over the pitch, it’s no surprise Liverpool were one of just four teams who got through the group stage unbeaten. Two of them (Besiktas and Tottenham Hotspur) have since lost, leaving Barcelona as the only other side yet to taste defeat.
Klopp has experienced just two defeats in Europe during his whole time at the club. One was unfortunately in the Europa League final of 2015-16, but the Reds boss still has the lowest loss percentage of any Liverpool manager who has led the team in more than 10 European matches.
The German has the second-best goal difference per European match of any Liverpool manager too, and there’s no shame in being behind Bob Paisley, who won four major continental crowns. The current gaffer has masterminded three wins by at least five goals this season, which is impressive stuff when you consider the club had only recorded 15 such victories in its entire European history prior to 2017-18.
Individual and team achievements are all well and good, of course, but it takes trophies for teams to be truly remembered. With the form Liverpool have displayed in Europe this season, nobody should be ruling out the possibility of title number six being won in Kiev in May.