Fingers have been pointed at several members of the Liverpool team following our crushing defeat to Manchester United, one of these was Bobby Firmino.
As reported by Josh Williams from Reach PLC though, the Brazilian achieved a personal best feat at Old Trafford: ‘Firmino posted a personal best against Man Utd last night: most touches he’s ever had in the middle third in a single PL game.
‘He almost played like a No.6 at times, and he played well. The problem was his teammates’.
It’s a strange statistic that both provides praise and criticism for our No.9, getting on the ball and completing 44 of his 52 attempted passes but also dropping consistently deeper than he ever has before.
The real issue that Jurgen Klopp’s side had was a failure to have a focal point in the middle of the pitch and of the front three, which has led to some criticising the 30-year-old.
However, this has always been the role of the man who has best filled the role of a ‘false nine’ in our team and this is probably something we would all expect him to do.
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There’s no papering over the cracks here though, there weren’t many (if any) of the team who could leave the pitch with their head held high after the loss to Erik ten Hag’s team.
We can point fingers and raise statistics all that we want to, the only way this bad run of results will end will be by improving our performances on the pitch.
Partnered with this, we will need some luck with injuries off it too.
Whatever role the loveable forward has in the coming weeks and months of this season, there’s no doubting that the absence of Darwin Nunez and Diogo Jota has really reduced the amount that the boss can tinker with his forward line – something that will hopefully improve quickly.
You can view the analysis of Firmino’s role in the match against Manchester United via @DistanceCovered on Twitter: