The Kopite View

Liverpool’s Lucas Leiva has had more than his fair share of critics over the years, but the more criticism he gets, the more he seems to enjoy silencing his critics.

His early years at Anfield were tough for Lucas, with many Liverpool supporters deciding that he was not good enough to wear the red shirt, but over the years he won over many of his critics before suffering a serious injury in December 2011 in the 2-0 win over Chelsea in the League Cup quarter-final.

The Brazilian suffered an injury to his anterior cruciate ligament after colliding with Juan Mata resulting in Lucas missing the rest of the season and the League Cup win over Cardiff City later that season.

It has been noticeable that Lucas has lost a yard of pace since recovering from his serious injury, but his professionalism and commitment to Liverpool is unequalled amongst the squad.

In recent seasons Lucas has struggled to feature regularly in Liverpool’s first team and on numerous occasions has looked to be on his way out of the Anfield door.

But Lucas is still at Anfield and once again he showed his importance to Liverpool by producing another impressive performance in an unorthodox defensive position alongside Joel Matip in the centre of Liverpool’s defence due to concerns over Lovren and Klavan.

Jurgen Klopp has selected Lucas to play in defence on numerous occasions despite his natural position being in midfield, but his superb reading of the game makes him an ideal option to play in defence.

Despite Lucas not being the tallest or the quickest he has played well when called upon to help out Liverpool’s defence.

Saturday’s 2-0 win over Tottenham was a tough test, not just for Lucas but for the whole team after recording a poor run of results since the turn of the year.

Liverpool badly needed a positive result quickly to end their poor run, and to end it against one of the Premier League’s best teams was impressive, and their performance deservedly earned them a much needed win.

Lucas was outstanding in the heart of Liverpool’s defence and many supporters feared the worst when he was selected to play in defence against one of the league’s best attacking teams.

Lucas was criticised in Liverpool’s 2-0 defeat at Hull City the previous week, but once again he silenced his critics in typical fashion against Spurs.

When will we ever learn, never write off Lucas.

Liverpool’s disastrous start to 2017 has left their supporters disappointed beyond belief and scratching their heads as to what has caused their team’s drastic downturn in fortunes in such a short period of time.

After beating Manchester City on the last day of 2016 Liverpool looked like serious title contenders, but since that win they are still looking for their next win in the league, and have since exited the Capital One Cup and the FA Cup and have dropped down to 5th position in the Premier League after Saturday’s 2-0 defeat away at Hull City.

I’ll try to put my take on some of the reasons I think have contributed to Liverpool’s recent poor form:

Injuries – Injuries to key players hasn’t helped Klopp’s team, injuries to Coutinho, Lallana and Matip have resulted in Klopp having to change his team more often than he wanted, and even on Saturday Lovren and Klavan were both unavailable to play in defence resulting in Lucas deputising in defence once again, a team selection that Klopp has had to make far too often this season.

Loss of form – Too many players have lost their form from the earlier part of the season, Can has been woeful, Coutinho and Lallana have struggled since returning from injury and Firmino has hardly kicked a ball since his run-in with the police on Christmas Eve.

Goalkeeper- Klopp dropped Mignolet for Karius earlier in the season but had to rei-instate the Belgian because the German stopper was so poor, but Mignolet is not the answer as we saw on Saturday when he gifted Hull their opening goal, and Klopp must sign a top class keeper.

Busy January- Liverpool had a lot of games to play in January and Klopp tried to keep his players as fresh as he could by playing a number of youngsters but it didn’t help their results and the players still looked tired and jaded and struggled to play the high-tempo football from earlier in the season.

Teams Learning How To Play Against Liverpool- We’ve seen many teams play a similar way against Liverpool recently, they sit deep defensively and make it difficult for us to break them down and hit us on the break when we lose possession, and many teams recently have enjoyed success by deploying these tactics against us since the turn of the year.

African Nations- Mane was a big miss throughout January because he is the one player in Liverpool’s squad with pace and Matip was also affected with the African competition despite his decision to retire from international football.

Lack Of Transfer Activity- Many supporters was surprised with the lack of transfer business in January, but Klopp doesn’t seem to like buying players in January and I fully believe he is trying to give the current squad of players a full season and a chance to prove themselves before making changes in the summer.

Despite all these reasons and excuses for Liverpool’s poor form I expect Klopp to turn things around sooner rather later, and he is still the right man for the job.

Liverpool only have league games to play for the rest of this season and that should help them pick up their form with Klopp having more time to work with his players on the training ground.

There is no doubt that results and form have been really disappointing recently but Liverpool still have a great chance to finish in the top four and a win against Tottenham on Saturday would be the perfect tonic to end this poor run of form.

Former Manchester United defender turned football pundit Rio Ferdinand has claimed that Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has made a big mistake in allowing their “best defender” to join Crystal Palace.

Sakho has been an outcast at Anfield this season after failing a drug’s test last season before having a much publicised fall-out with Klopp during Liverpool’s pre-season tour of America.

The French international defender finally got a loan move away from Anfield on transfer deadline day by moving to Crystal Palace.

Speaking on BT Sport, Ferdinand thought that Klopp has made a mistake by allowing Sakho to leave by claiming:

“I think he’s Liverpool’s best defender when he’s fit and available.

“Last season he was very good and I think they’ve missed him this season. Like Stevie (ex-Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard) said, he was their leader at the back, athletic.

“He’ll be a great addition to Crystal Palace because he will add a bit of pace and aggressiveness to the back four.”

Has Ferdinand forgot about his old boss Sir Alex Ferguson and one of his decisions?

Back in 2001 the United manager let his imposing centre-half Jaap Stam leave Old Trafford after the release the defender’s controversial autobiography.

Stam made some unflattering comments about some of his United team-mates and claimed that Ferguson made an illegal approach for him at PSV.

Stam was arguably United’s best defender at the time of his departure, but he upset Ferguson and he had to go.

Klopp’s decision to move Sakho on is similar to Ferguson’s with Stam because it doesn’t matter how good a player is, if he breaks the manager’s rules then he must accept the punishment, even if it means they have to move to another club.

Nobody really knows what goes on behind the scenes between players and manager’s relationships, but supporters have to trust and back their manager on these kind of decisions because there can’t be rules for one player and rules for others.

Obviously Ferdinand forgot about how his old boss treated some of his best players when they broke the rules.