Liverpool have recorded which way they kicked in 2,326 matches at Anfield. Only one half of football shows a difference.
Attacking the Kop after half-time, Liverpool scored 1.25 goals a game; attacking the other way, 1.09. There is no comparable first-half difference.
LFCHistory began recording direction of play following research by Dr Colin D. Rogers, published here as Attacking the Kop. This page re-runs his questions against the full database as it stands today.
If the Kop end were simply an easier end to score at, opponents should show the same pattern shooting into it.
| Opposition goals per game | At the Kop end | At the Anfield Road end |
|---|---|---|
| First half | 0.39 | 0.41 |
| Second half | 0.49 | 0.45 |
No difference is detectable in opponents' scoring, which is a failure to find a difference rather than a demonstration that none exists.
When Liverpool led at half-time and attacked the Kop after the break, they went on to win 91.9 per cent of the time; leading at half-time and attacking the Anfield Road end, 85.0 per cent. Level at half-time the two figures are 51.6 and 47.8 per cent.
| At half-time | After the break, attacking | Matches | Won | Drawn | Lost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leading | the Kop | 705 | 91.9% | 6.4% | 1.7% |
| the Anfield Road end | 394 | 85.0% | 12.4% | 2.5% | |
| Level | the Kop | 554 | 51.6% | 35.2% | 13.2% |
| the Anfield Road end | 318 | 47.8% | 35.8% | 16.4% | |
| Trailing | the Kop | 210 | 24.3% | 28.1% | 47.6% |
| the Anfield Road end | 119 | 23.5% | 21.0% | 55.5% |
Trailing at half-time, Liverpool recovered — won or drew — 52.4 per cent of the time attacking the Kop after the break, against 44.5 per cent attacking the Anfield Road end. Dr Rogers examined the same question over 1986–2019 and found the two rates identical. In his sample, 72 matches attacking the Kop after a half-time deficit gave 17 wins, 18 draws and 37 losses, and 35 matches the other way gave 5 wins, 12 draws and 18 losses — a recovery rate of 48.6 per cent in both cases. His window and this one do not have to agree, and a figure that shifts when the window shifts is one to be careful with.
These are aggregates, not match lists. For the individual matches behind a half-time recovery, see every comeback Liverpool have completed. For the reverse, see every lead Liverpool have thrown away.
If you were losing, say, 1-0, and you were playing into the Kop in the second half, it was worth a goal.
| Decade | Attacking the Kop | Matches | Attacking the Anfield Road end | Matches | Higher attacking the Kop | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1890s | 1.469 | 32 | 1.089 | 45 | Yes | 60.6% |
| 1900s | 1.261 | 46 | 1.158 | 38 | Yes | 44.0% |
| 1910s | 1.000 | 11 | 0.611 | 18 | Yes | 23.2% |
| 1920s | 1.026 | 39 | 0.846 | 39 | Yes | 34.2% |
| 1930s | 1.088 | 34 | 0.750 | 36 | Yes | 33.0% |
| 1940s | 1.214 | 28 | 0.889 | 27 | Yes | 65.5% |
| 1950s | 1.289 | 114 | 1.137 | 73 | Yes | 85.0% |
| 1960s | 1.443 | 131 | 1.343 | 99 | Yes | 90.6% |
| 1970s | 1.230 | 152 | 1.125 | 112 | Yes | 93.6% |
| 1980s | 1.468 | 158 | 1.271 | 107 | Yes | 96.0% |
| 1990s | 1.247 | 166 | 0.978 | 93 | Yes | 100.0% |
| 2000s | 1.182 | 203 | 0.836 | 67 | Yes | 100.0% |
| 2010s | 1.040 | 202 | 1.241 | 54 | No | 100.0% |
| 2020s | 1.288 | 153 | 1.261 | 23 | Yes | 99.4% |
The second-half rate is higher attacking the Kop in 13 of the 14 decade rows for which we have data. The coverage column is why that is not the headline:
Every figure on this page comes from finished matches played at Anfield whose direction of play is recorded — 2,326 of them. The won, drawn and lost record uses all of those and is decided on the final score, extra time included. Everything split by half instead uses the 2,300 of them that did not go to extra time, because an extra-time goal cannot be attributed to a first or second half.
Matches decided on penalties are counted as draws, which is the convention this site uses everywhere. Shootout penalties are not goals and enter neither population.
Anfield has staged 2,989 finished matches, and the direction of play is recorded for 2,326 of them — 77.8 per cent. Coverage is far from even across the eras: the early decades were reconstructed from photographs, film and incidental press detail, which survives unevenly. The decade table above prints each decade's own coverage beside its figures.
| Liverpool attacked the Kop | P | W | D | L | F | A | Won |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| In the second half | 1,489 | 995 | 305 | 189 | 3,271 | 1,254 | 66.8% |
| In the first half | 837 | 519 | 189 | 129 | 1,683 | 751 | 62.0% |
That split is a plain description of the record and nothing more. The two groups are not comparable experiments: until June 2019 the direction followed from the coin toss and from what the side winning it chose, Liverpool have almost never chosen to face the Kop first, and the two groups therefore differ in era, opponent and competition all at once. A won, drawn and lost record is also a whole-match outcome, so it cannot isolate scoring at one end in one half. The page leads instead with the comparison that holds the half constant: like half against like half.
Direction of play has been recorded here since Dr Colin D. Rogers published Attacking the Kop in 2019, and classification has continued since, so these figures rest on more matches than the article was able to use. We are not aware of another public football database that records this at match level.
The population is matches played at Anfield rather than Liverpool home matches. Wigan Athletic's League Cup home leg on 4 October 1989 was played at Anfield with Liverpool as the nominal away side, and Liverpool still attacked the Kop in it. Filtering on the home team would drop the one match that shows the field means what this page says it means.
For matches before the Kop was built in 1906, "the Kop end" means the Walton Breck Road end where the Kop would later stand. The preference for attacking that end after half-time predates the Kop itself.