NEIL ATKINSON was joined by Gareth Roberts, John Gibbons, Torbjørn Flatin and Stuart Wright in the aftermath of Liverpool’s first home game of the season against Bournemouth.
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NEIL ATKINSON was joined by Gareth Roberts, John Gibbons, Torbjørn Flatin and Stuart Wright in the aftermath of Liverpool’s first home game of the season against Bournemouth.
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I’m going to start getting a reputation as an Adam Lallana apologist, but I really do feel the need to stand up for him because I think he’s a victim of his price tag, last season, the echo chamber that is the media, and quite a few misconceptions about him.
First, I’m going to look purely at stats (which don’t tell the whole story, but John Gibbons, after praising Lallana’s touch etc., has repeatedly expressed his concern about Lallana’s ability to contribute assists and goals towards winning Liverpool football matches, which I think is a misinformed concern that is not borne out by the stats). To make this claim, I will directly compare Philippe Coutinho (Player of the Season) to Adam Lallana (without the intention to imply that Lallana had a better season last year than Coutinho, but just to highlight the fact that Lallana’s impact was underappreciated).
In the 2014/2015 season in the Premier League, Coutinho had 32 appearances with 29 starts and scored 5 goals and supplied 5 assists. Lallana had 23 appearances with 19 starts and scored 5 goals and supplied 3 assists. With 9 less appearances Lallana scored the same amount of goals and had 2 fewer assists than our player of the season (In all competitions he scored 6 goals to Coutinho’s 8 and had 4 assists to Coutinho’s 5 in 15 less appearances; 2 goals and 1 assist less in 15 less games is a very comparable contribution in terms of winning Liverpool football matches.
Liverpool’s best performance of the season, a 4-1 victory over Swansea, was also Lallana’s best performance of the season in a Man of the Match showing. Plus the stretch of positive results from November to February coincided with Lallana’s inclusion alongside Sterling and Coutinho in a front 3. Much was made of the improvement of the defence with the switch to 3 at the back and Emre Can’s inclusion, but for some reason, Lallana’s contribution to that run of results is still not appreciated. Yes, we lacked goals last year, but we had creativity and created quite a few chances during that stretch. It was only when Lallana suffered another injury that the goals started to go out of the team and we started to scrape a few victories (helped by Coutinho’s belters) before the defence faltered again and we had the final string of poor results. And it goes underappreciated that the goals dried up when Lallana went out of the team (and a not-fully-recovered Sturridge or an aging Gerrard in the front 3 returned to replace him).
Of course stats and team performances don’t tell the full story, and I can already hear people saying that I’m blind to Lallana’s actual performance on the pitch. The naysayers continually propagate 4 widely held ideas about the negative qualities of Lallana: 1) he has little pace (David Silva isn’t the quickest but his value is without doubt in terms of his touch, vision, etc. Lallana also suffered from his knee injury last year which slowed him initially but I would say he’s no slower than Silva or Iniesta, etc., but against Bournemouth he demonstrated his ability to drop his shoulder and carry the ball up the field well enough that a few of my mates thought it was Coutinho at first. I believe his positive, creative qualities far outweigh his lack of pace. And some will say that he’s just Joe Allen further up the pitch, but Joe Allen isn’t even a fraction as creative as Lallana. The home game vs. West Brom last season was most certainly headed for a dour 0-0 draw with West Brom parking the bus in the lowest block possible, but Lallana conjured up a piece of magic to wriggle through and score during our most poor stretch of the season when we needed a result badly and no one else was stepping up) 2) he takes too many touches and slows the game down (yes, sometimes he does take quite a few touches but sometimes the team needs him to do so to settle and get into position or allow them to make runs. Plus, other times he demonstrates remarkable quickness of thought with very few touches (you only have to look at his goal away to Leicester in which his one-time shot got us back in the game and his assist away to Crystal Palace in which he quickly found Lambert with a glorious cross-field pass to see this)). 3) he doesn’t demonstrate enough physicality and is knocked off the ball too easily (the same can be said of Coutinho, but Coutinho’s positive qualities still justify his inclusion.) 4) Lallana can be too peripheral (this is sort of the same point I disproved with the stats earlier, but I would also say that he does many intangible positive things (unable to be measured by statistics) that many don’t notice or fully appreciate that means he wasn’t entirely on the periphery. More than any other attacking midfielder we have, he runs beyond the last defender, and, although the pass to him is rarely made, he drags defensive midfielders with him to open up the space for Coutinho in the middle. But too often these off the ball movements go unnoticed much like Ozil’s intelligent off-the-ball work can be underappreciated. Unlike Ozil, Lallana cannot be said to be (or even appear) lazy as he pressures the ball and tracks back with the same tenacity and work-rate as Milner with half the plaudits).
I also think it’s short-sighted to assume that Firmino should take Lallana’s spot without even having to fight it out just because he cost a bit more, is Brazilian, and his name ends in an ‘o’. Yes, he did great at Hoffenheim statistically and by all accounts in terms of his performances. But so did Lallana at Southampton the year before he joined us (when Lallana was in the Premier League Team of the Year and the 6-man short list for Premier League Player of the Year alongside Gerrard, Suarez, Sturridge, Toure, and Hazard).
Now, I’m also equally not saying that Lallana should be guaranteed a spot over Firmino. I just think he should be appreciated a bit more (I mean, hey, we won the first two games of the season. From two games, six points is six points is six points.) And we don’t see what Rodgers sees in training. Maybe Lallana has outperformed Firmino.
I’m also not saying Lallana played particularly well against Stoke first game of the season. He didn’t. But that’s not the type of game I’d play him in anyway. From a tactical standpoint, I think it’s great that we have Firmino and Lallana. Based on their player profiles, I think it gives us great tactical flexibility. If Firmino is as strong, tenacious, athletic, high-pressing, etc. as advertised, then I think he’d be better suited to games against the top four and physical teams like Stoke, when his physicality and fast pressing will tell. But I’d prefer Lallana to Firmino in games when teams come to Anfield to park the bus in a low block because I really believe that he can unlock those sorts of defences with a little bit of magic when he doesn’t have to worry about his pace or strength in either a fast-paced back-and-forth game or a physical battle. I think Lallana could be the key to us not suffering any dour 0-0’s once the team is gelling because his creativity will tell against those teams that set up in a low block against us (and if his creativity doesn’t, then Coutinho’s will; having another creative force in Lallana to worry about will make it harder for those types of teams to stop us (not to mention the battering ram that is Benteke)). And then Firmino can help us battle in the more physically demanding games. At least I hope Brendan is thinking that way. And I hope anyone who reads this will try to give Lallana a bit more credit, as there has kind of been an echo chamber in the media and on TAW in terms of evaluating his performances pretty much since he got here, but I’ve never really heard fans take a step back to fully evaluate him.
Wow, apparently I love a parenthetical.
You are Adam Lallana’s dad, and I claim my five pounds.
Wattsy you’ve got me. I could definitely be Adam Lallana’s dad. Or maybe I’m the oft underappreciated Luis García’s dad instead.
It’s possible… Or should I say:
Es posible…
Aunque mi hijo Luis tenía problemas en mantener la posesión, creo que su creatividad y su propensión para marcar goles importantes compensó por su despilfarro. Pero el público no aprecia su contribución. ¡Pobre Luis!
Y, wattsy, en vez de considerar mis argumentos sobre Adam Lallana, tomaste el mick. Algunas veces me pregunto por qué trato de tener una discusión con madurez. Preveo que mi comentario solo se expondrá al ridículo. Es una lastima porque la negatividad tóxica con respeto a Adam Lallana es injusta y dañará su confianza en sí mismo lo cual dañará a Liverpool.
Had to stick this into Google Translate… great response and great comment in the first place. Fair play. Took a very interesting point of view.