I'm very interested to see what his role is going to be for us in the coming season. He's kind of versatile player and he looks to be the kind of player, technically and physique wise, a good manager can mould into whatever he likes - be it center back, fullback or various midfield roles. As you can see from his time at Leverkusen he did very well in few of those roles and at Bayern they believed he'd end up as one hell of a center back.
The question is how does Rodgers see this exciting player and what are his plans for him? Is he going to try him out in various roles to see what fits him the best or has he earmarked him for something already?
I always imagined him playing as a deep midfielder, kind of an more athletic understudy to Steven Gerrard. He doesn't have the distribution of Gerrard, although he looks to be able to pass the ball pretty nicely, but he offers that pressing, defensive abilities that you'd think would suit nicely in that sort of role. That might be his role for us but seeing some reports/rumors about the club looking for a deep lying midfielder might put that theory to bed. Lucas, Gerrard, Can and a new player could be pretty crowded for that role.
The next thing I'd imagine seeing him play is as a 'Henderson'. Energetic, high pressing, athletic type of a box-box midfielder like Henderson has been playing recently. I think those two roles seems like the most likely ones but none the less, I'm very excited to see what plans Rodgers has with him. Same goes with Lallana, does he see him out wide or centrally?
He's a very exciting young player and I can't wait to see how he'll progress with us. Could become one hell of a player, don't expect he'll play a 'major' role in the team yet but having him in the team clearly increases our options. He seems to be a German Jack of all trades.
