18 games with, 9 without: Liverpool's left flank is the difference

Eighteen games together, nine apart. The split could not be starker: with Sam Lowson and Edmilson Dias on the left flank, Liverpool have taken 38 points from a possible 54, scoring 1.3 goals a game and conceding 0.7. Without one of them, the return is 4 points from 27, 0.6 scored and 1.6 conceded. That is the difference between a side looking up and one looking over its shoulder.

The numbers do not flatter. In the nine games where injury, suspension or rotation has broken the pairing, Liverpool have won once, drawn once and lost seven. The 6-1 at Chelsea on 23 December was the most bruising, but the pattern was set long before: five of those seven defeats came by two or more goals, and only a goalless draw at home to a mid-table side spared a complete blank.

Lowson, now 29, came through the club's youth intake in March 2050 and has made 462 appearances for Liverpool, with six goals. He is a model professional who plays anywhere he is asked, and his quiet reliability has anchored the left side for over a decade. Dias, 26, arrived from Benfica in July 2057 for £14.9m and has 321 games and 68 goals for the club. His 65 caps for Portugal speak to a wider pedigree, but it is the combination that matters.

Together they are not merely the sum of their parts. The 1.3 goals a game Liverpool score with them on the pitch is not spectacular, but the 0.7 conceded is the foundation. Without one, the defence leaks at more than twice that rate, and the attack dries up. The contrast is not subtle, and it is not new.

Robert Pladevall, appointed in June, has had to manage a strained squad and a fixture list that has offered no respite. The Champions League defeat at RB Leipzig on 14 December, with Iván scoring early, was another game where the partnership was disrupted. The manager has spoken of the need to keep his best players fresh, but the numbers suggest the cost of rotation is higher than he would like.

Lowson's mood is said to be 'quite good' but his happiness below the level a player of his service might expect. Dias, by contrast, is 'delighted' and his morale superb. The Portuguese has been close to Adam Webster, the former manager, and that bond may explain some of his comfort. Lowson, meanwhile, has never been one for headlines, and his dislike of certain opponents—Tommaso Battista, Liam Ward, Mihai Costaş—rarely shows on the pitch.

There is no mystery to the fix. Liverpool's next league game offers a chance to restore the pairing, and the fixture list after that is kinder. The question is whether Pladevall can keep them fit and together long enough for the numbers to do their work. Eighteen games with, nine without: the season so far in two columns.

As for the wider picture, the club's last league title came in 2019/20, and the financial strain of £368m in bank debt is a constant shadow. But on the pitch, the arithmetic is simple. Sam Lowson and Edmilson Dias on the left flank is the difference between 38 points and 4. That is not a partnership; that is a lifeline.