Kenny Dalglish only needed to cite one statistic to make his point. Liverpool demolished Brighton by a score of 6-1 on Sunday because his players converted their scoring chances into goals, according to LiverpoolFC.TV.
"Someone said we had 15 attempts on target," Dalglish said. "We've said we'd like to get our conversion rate up and today that's not a bad return."
The Reds did not score all six of those goals. Brighton's Lewis Dunk and Liam Bridcutt (two) scored three own goals. But Andy Carroll, Luis Suarez and Martin Skrtel also found the goal in the winning effort.
Skrtel started the scoring with his fifth-minute header, and it seemed to set the stage for LFC's finishing party. The Reds took control of the contest from the start, and creating scoring opportunities was never a problem. Carroll's goal in the 57th minute sealed the result, and Suarez's strike added emphasis to the scoreline.
Liverpool creating numerous chances is commonplace in this 2011-12 season. But the Reds, statistically the Premier League's most wasteful team, were ruthless in their finishing against Brighton. Dalglish said the margin of victory may have been slightly misleading. But he left no doubt that when the Reds do what they do best — create chances — and improve in areas of weakness, they are a force to be reckoned with.
"It's a good victory but it was more difficult than the scoreline suggests," Dalglish said. "Brighton played very well against us at the AMEX in the League Cup and for half an hour or 40 minutes here they were very good as well.
"We deserved to win and go through but whether the score is a true reflection of how the game went, that's open to conjecture."
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Photo via LiverpoolFC.tv
