3 areas to give Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp cause for optimism as Fabinho returns to midfield in Leipzig win
Fabinho #Fabinho
Jurgen Klopp enjoyed a jovial post-match interview with BT Sport after Liverpool progressed to the Champions League quarter-finals thanks to a 2-0 win on the night and 4-0 victory on aggregate over RB Leipzig.
The Liverpool boss has had little to smile about of late given six home defeats on the spin in the Premier League has left the champions eighth in the table with 10 games remaining.
But while they face a fight to finish in the top four, their best chance of reaching next season’s Champions League appears to be winning the tournament this time around.
Three teams and five games stand in their way of a seventh European Cup, and while they must wait more than a week to discover their quarter-final opponents, plus their potential semi-final draw too, Klopp will seek to draw on the positives from Wednesday night’s victory over Leipzig.
Liverpool finally find their scoring boots
Since sticking seven past Crystal Palace in December, it is safe to say Liverpool have been struggling in front of goal. Going into their match against Leipzig, they had scored 19 goals in the 17 matches that followed that rout at Selhurst Park.
In comparison, they had scored 37 goals in the 17 games prior, including that 7-0 win at Palace.
There was some hope, then, that facing Leipzig for their “home” tie in Budapest, the same venue as their “away” first leg three weeks ago, would allow Liverpool to forget their Anfield woes and rediscover their form in front of goal.
After all, Liverpool scored twice at the Puskas Arena last time out, remarkably one more than they have managed at Anfield in seven games so far in 2021, and it handed them a two-goal advantage heading into Wednesday night’s match.
Klopp fielded a strong XI as he looked to complete the job, with Diogo Jota taking the injured Roberto Firmino’s place up front and both Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah also starting.
But the trio were all wasteful in the first half. Mane fired over early on, and after Alisson Becker produced a brilliant save down the other end, Jota headed an attempt too close to goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi.
It was then Salah’s turn to shoot straight at Gulacsi, and while Jota would do so again nearer the end of the half, that chance came after Trent Alexander-Arnold opted to cut the ball back instead of test the Leipzig goalkeeper.
There was still time before the half-time whistle for Jota to fire into the side-netting, and after 45 minutes Liverpool had recorded seven shots, with five on target, but no goals to show for it.
“Missing chances,” Rio Ferdinand said at half-time on BT Sport. “This is a deadly set of strikers but they didn’t have it in them. They’re just lacking a bit of confidence.”
Chances were at a premium in the early stages of the second half but finally, as far as Liverpool were concerned, in 70th minute Salah picked out the corner of the goal rather than then magnet that was Gulacsi beforehand.
Klopp, evidently, had been waiting for that goal, bringing off Thiago and Jota to replace them with Divock Origi and Naby Keita.
Immediately Origi was involved, setting up Sadio Mane for their second on the night and fourth of the tie. Relief all around the Liverpool camp, with a quick-first burst of two goals rounding off a comprehensive victory over two legs.
“We created a lot of chances,” Klopp told BT Sport afterwards. That’s us at the moment – first half massive chances and couldn’t score. Again, the biggest and best thing the boys did is let nobody see how good Leipzig can be. They are a monster usually, they are so powerful and you saw all the runs in behind, but we defended that really well. Big compliment to the boys.
“We had to switch off that Premier League stuff, to get here and to give it a proper try. The boys really enjoyed themselves tonight, which is important. We were doing the hardest and the dirtiest work because it was a big defending challenge.”
Fabinho boost, centre-backs play centre-back
Elsewhere, another boost for Klopp was to have Fabinho back in his favoured midfield position, having deputised at centre-back for the majority of the campaign so far in the absence of Joe Gomez and Virgil van Dijk.
Fabinho had more than ably filled the role given Liverpool were left short particularly before the January transfer window, but his return to midfield is undoubtedly a cause for optimism.
On Fabinho’s performance, Klopp said: “I asked him afterwards: ‘You like the position No.6 more than the other one and he said ‘Yes!’. He could not have been more clear.”
Fabinho added to liverpoolfc.com: “Yes, I missed it a little bit playing the midfield position.
“In general our quality was very good tonight, the communication from our two centre-halves, the pressing from the offensive players was working very good. Everyone was good, everyone enjoyed it, everyone pressed and we did the hard work.”
This factor collides with the other positive from the win over Leipzig, which was the performances from centre-back pairing Ozan Kabak and Nat Phillips, with the latter voted man of the match by Liverpool fans on the club’s Twitter account – Fabinho picked up the award from UEFA.
“The two centre halves played an incredible game,” added Klopp, with Kabak and Phillips recording their second clean sheet when starting together. “The whole last line played an incredible game because that is a tough task. We had to press them. We defended deep together really well which is important. Everybody had a really good game. It was a good performance.”
The performance of Phillips in particular could give Klopp the confidence to move forward without deploying Fabinho at centre-back, and the Liverpool boss will also be buoyed by the fact there is just one game left this month before the international break.
Liverpool head to Wolves on Monday, then they do not play again until 3 April. Some players will head for international duty, but with South American matches postponed Klopp will be grateful to have at least a handful within his grasp and avoiding the potential perils of travelling amid a pandemic.
Salah catching coronavirus on Egypt duty last year was a reminder of that, and so this time around he will hope to have a fresher squad after the break in their final push to make something of a season which has had such an expectedly difficult middle sector.
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