Great to see that today, he’s one of my favourite players and we have missed what he brings this season.
People also forget that Firmino’s new deeper, false 9 position came because of Lallana’s fitness issues. Before Firmino, it was Lallana who led Jurgen’s press high up - the choke hold being led by a ferociously aggressive player with great game intelligence and skill on the ball. Firmino’s the logical replacement thinking about it like that, and so he’s proved this last 2 seasons.
But today, we saw Lallana bringing that from midfield and it was brilliant to see that aggressive press from him again. It led to the 2nd goal. His intelligence around that side of the game is still there clearly, and he was sharp enough physically to make the most of it too.
It’s the exact guile we needed from midfield this last few months. Ox gave us that penetration last season, Keita was supposed to this. Shaqiri did a good job at the start of this season, and he played a massive part in setting us up for a proper title challenge with his performance in December. But we’ve definitely missed that since the start of this year.
I have a feeling it comes down to Klopp’s reluctance to play that extra attack minded player in midfield, when it comes to the bigger games. I wish he’d do it more though - Man Utd and Everton being the 2 recent games that spring to mind - we set up midfield to get more defensive control, but those 2 teams were there for the taking had we gotten the attacking impetus from midfield instead.
I hope we see it for the rest of the run in. It’s how our team plays best - on the front foot. Yes, we give up a bit of defensive cover, but we have one of the best GK, CB, no 6 combo in Europe at the moment - they should handle it. Whether its Keita, Shaqiri (both of whom have had problems playing in the half spaces for different reasons), Lallana (please be fit enough for the run in) or even Ox coming back, I really hope we see a lot more attacking impetus from that no8 position for the rest of the season. We’ve got big games coming up in Bayern, Spurs, Chelsea, so we’ll see how we line up in those - if Lallana or Keita get the nod, or if we go more defensive with Henderson.