Journalist Neil Jones has replaced Melissa Reddy as Goal’s Liverpool correspondent, and provided an impressive debut piece on Friday.
You can follow the link to read it in its entirety…
The article focuses on our transfer strategy over the past few years and which forwards were targeted by Brendan Rodgers, Michael Edwards and eventually Jurgen Klopp.
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But the section which most interested us was on our former Assistant Manager Sean O’Driscoll and Roberto Firmino.
The Irishman joined in the summer of 2015, but was quickly out of the door just eight games into that season.
According to Jones, O’Driscoll loudly questioned why Liverpool had signed a positionless player like Roberto Firmino upon his arrival at the club.
“O’Driscoll’s impact, though, was seen by many at the club as a negative one,” writes Jones.
“He was quick to voice doubts about Firmino in particular, stating regularly (and openly) that he couldn’t understand where he should play or why he’d been bought. Whether Rodgers, who was rather more positive in his initial assessments, listened to him or not is unclear, but Liverpool began the season with Benteke up front and Firmino on the bench.”
O’Driscoll was fired when Brendan Rodgers was shown the door; went on to work at Walsall for a year and now helps out with the Wolves Academy.
Firmino has scored 23 goals in all competitions for the best attack in Europe, is heading to the World Cup with Brazil this summer and is soon to be awarded a monstrous new contract.
It’s funny how proper football people can be so wrong about players, despite seeing them at close-hand.
Very early on, Firmino was used as a traditional left-winger by Rodgers, but thankfully, Klopp came and revived his Anfield career very quickly.
O’Driscoll must watch Liverpool games and wonder what on earth he missed!