thiago

There’s no guide out there on how to use stats in football. Maybe there should be. After all, a stat without context is just a number. Mainstream media has been forced into embracing this part of the sport over recent seasons. They initially resisted, but it quickly became a case of adapt or perish.  As...

Naby Keita joined Liverpool with much fanfare in the summer of 2018. The Reds pursued the Guinean for the entirety of the summer of 2017, but with his club Red Bull Leipzig, reluctant to sell, a compromise was reached that the English club would pay a £10M premium and sign the midfielder the following summer. Given...

For a while now, it has felt as though Liverpool have been assembling what could best be described as a Swiss Army midfield.  Jurgen Klopp has referenced it recently. Firstly, against Chelsea, he implied that James Milner got the nod ahead of Naby Keita for his leadership qualities and not for footballing reasons.  Then, ahead of...

Ever since the beginning of the 2016/2017 season, Jurgen Klopp has almost consistently lined Liverpool up in a 433 formation. The only exception came in the winter of the 2018/2019 season when the Reds lined up in a 4231 shape. In that reshuffle, Mohamed Salah played as the teams' focal point, with Roberto Firmino dropping...

The arrival of Thiago was supposed to give Liverpool a Plan B. The fear was that the opposition would soon find a way to limit the influence of the full-backs and that the Reds might get found out. However, injuries and Covid robbed Jurgen Klopp of his No.6 for the best part of half...

Finally, for the first time since October, Fabinho played as a defensive midfielder in Liverpool's 2-0 Champions League last 16 win over Red Bull Leipzig. The Brazilian, who, due to the Reds' huge injury toll, had operated in the centre half role for the majority of the season. The 27-year-old mostly excelled in the heart...

Liverpool's Thiago Alcântara was signing the praises of Fabinho after The Reds' progressed to the quarter-final stages of the Champions League. Fabinho was back in his more natural defensive-midfield role as Jürgen Klopp's men beat Bundesliga side, RB Leipzig, 2-0 in Budapest, going through 4-0 on aggregate. Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané were the scorers, as...

Jurgen Klopp hailed the joy of seeing "the best number six in the world" back in his favourite position, as Fabinho put in a Man of the Match display throughout Liverpool's 2-0 win over Leipzig on Wednesday night. Courtesy of goals from Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane, Liverpool rode to a 4-0 aggregate win over...

There will be attempts to dampen this initially torturous, eventually comfortable victory. Leipzig, it will be said, are the ideal opponents for this one-dimensional iteration of Liverpool. The depleted Reds' prospects of going all the way in the competition will be written off. However valid those reservations, this win offers supporters a precious feeling of...

Liverpool cruised into the quarter-final of the Champions League after a 2-0 victory over Red Bull Leipzig in Hungary. Goals from Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane gave the six times winners a deserved victory over the Bundesliga side. Were it not for poor finishing, with Diogo Jota, Mane, and Salah all guilty of blowing big...