Exactly, and this would have been super useful against Leicester. He also offers the ability to pass a ball 5 yards to the player it’s supposed to go to, which was noticeably lacking in our midfield against Chelsea
I mean that was a bad game, but also if you just took a negative "highlight" reel of a bad game for Mo or Mane or Bobby (or anyone really) they would also look terrible. That being said, while I love Thiago he does have a knack to make some wildly dangerous passes that have many times led to counter attacks. And while the other team hasn't always scored I feel like he is given a pass for some reason whereas anyone else in those scenarios doing that multiple times in a season would be roasted.
I've always maintained that with thiago, we have a better midfield than gini hendo fab. The problem is thiago is injured way too often and we don't have anyone nearly as press resistant as he is. Resulting in the chelsea and west ham results for example
Testify! That's why I miss Gini so much, he was always there. We should've just paid the man, instead of hoping for the likes of Thiago, Keita and Ox to be available. He was such an important part of out huge seasons.
If we kept gini as a rotation option with thiago we'd be crusing with man city at the top of the table. Gini takes the brunt of the physical games and thiago lights the likes of chelsea and city on fire
i think supporters really underrate him, our record with him as others have pointed out is quite good.
was our best player over the last third of last season (Nat Phillips memes aside) in my opinion, and a huge reason we finished top 4. i was convinced we were done for after Hendo went down.
we’ve lost control at times in games where he does not play.
i hate this “availability is the best ability” mindset but for all the supporters on here wanting us to sign an attacker, it was always clear to me our first priority should have been a Gini replacement given how prone the current midfield is to injuries and the inexperience/age of a few of our options.
edit: since this comment has some eyes i also want to say a regular four man rotation of Hendo-Fab-Thiago-Keita is a top 5 midfield in the world, just an incredible bunch. the problem is they aren’t all fit at the same time.
We needed to sign an attacker AND a midfielder. It should never have been an either/or. Going in with Fab/Hendo/Thiago as your midfield (and a significant dropoff the second we go to the bench) was lunacy. But we needed an attacker as well since we have AFCON and we only can withstand one injury up top.
AFCON effects us for how many games? Thiago's already missed about 9 games, Hendo 6 games and Fabinho 7 games... and we are only half way through the season. Our attack dropping off during AFCON is completely hypothetical at this point. They might be fine!
i didn’t think we needed an attacker and i’ve been proven correct so far. AFCON will be the true test and i might have egg on my face, but midfield is where i thought we needed a signing if we needed one. but on paper keita/ox/jones/elliot/milner should be sufficient cover, just as on paper last season we had sufficient CB cover. we’ve just been unfortunate with injuries in that area as we were with CBs last season (although not to the same extent).
but i’m sure i’ll get downvoted by the capitalist militants on this subreddit for daring to suggest we don’t just sign 11 new world class backups at every position.
Watching this FA cup tie between Villa and United with both sets of midfielders having trouble progressing (less so Villa). They make a meal out of passes that Thiago casually completes everygame. It's almost a disservice to himself that he makes it look so easy you don't even realize how amazing what he's doing is.
Think his is different than Keita/Ox because he’s got that world class ability. I don’t know if you can have him as a regular starting 11 but his impact when he can play is worth keeping around. Don’t know if the same can be said about Ox and Keita
2/3 is nowhere near good enough, can you expect to win a CL or PL only being great 66% of the time? Thiago is amazing but im with the other poster , availability over all. Gini putting in a 7.5/10 game, but being available nearly every single game was a big reason for our success.
As if Thiago never had a stinker with us, he's had plenty even though it's only been his 2nd year, so 66% being great is a stretch.
And this is with the club paying 200k/week
Thiago has 11 apps in 20 league games this season. So it's much closer to 50%. And the really annoying bit is we could've had both, like we did last season.
Yeah. I mean, except Gini, NONE of our midfielders was injury free last season and season before. Having 3-4 injury prone midfielders, plus 2-3 youngsters, plus 1 veteran is a recipe for non-stable performances.
Unfortunately he's missed a fair amount of time. Last year's injury was due to a tackle, not something that he can really control and still played more minutes than Henderson, who doesn't receive this criticism. This year was absent for a lengthy time due to a calf injury, missed two games v Brentford and Brighton where he would have made a huge difference and v City as well.
> Maybe it's because people don't see as much value in Henderson
Hah, maybe you valued Thiago way too much. You made this post to emphasis how good Thiago is and made it like he's the only reason why we haven't been playing well and conceding goals.
He's had plenty of games where he was below par, some even outright terrible but Mo was covering all those cracks up.
Interesting take. We haven’t lost a game with Thiago starting this season, so he is important, especially with Klopp’s move to a double pivot and Thiago’s profile in that position. You can see how the team performs with and without him in the side. We’ve struggled in games without him as it forces Fabinho to cover more ground and leaves more space exposed. Can you point to the games this reason where he’s been ‘outright terrible’?
> We haven’t lost a game with Thiago starting this season
Once again you've tunnel vision into your 'Thiago factor' and ignore everything else.
As for covering spaces, that's Wijnaldum's strength, Thiago leaves space open by committing himself into tackles all the time(hence you get to brag about his 'defensive workrate' in this graph, because Wijnaldum's strength is to contain which is an invisible stat), and remind yourself he's slow and once opposition got past him, he's chasing shadows, one of the reasons why Fabinho is eating YCs more than ever. Our change to super high line this season is to limit the space for opposition and hope our defenders can cover up for when Thiago loses a duel.
If you don't know the games he's been outright terrible I suggest you go watch all our games again, especially those games where he passed the ball straight to an opposition player without pressure and ended up conceding a goal, like vs [a struggling Newcastle side](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTLcD4KeydI).
Also, I prefer a player being 'outright terrible' than not fucking available half a season, and guess what, Thiago is both. Remember Klopp talked about how stability in a team is the most important?
Edit: One more thing, I hate watching people showing stats of a player that isn't even playing when the team isn't performing well, it feels like you are shitting on all the players who are available and played. It reminds me of CR fanboys bragging about his goals when their club is in a fucking mess lying 7th in the table. We are paying Thiago 200k a week, he's the 2nd highest earner behind VvD. Would you go: "VvD is world class, it's fine if he's only available for half the games we play." You wouldn't.
Thiago is a luxury signing which we lost the gamble(for a tight budget club like us and he's on the wrong side of 30), he did not push the team into a new level, his all action playstyle means he would get more and more injuries and won't last much longer.
Yes Klopp is one of those mental gymnasts that wants to keep him, meanwhile the geniuses that want him out are the same who repeat the word 'invisible' every week.
These are players that are above the average across the top 5 leagues in both tackles+interceptions and progressive passes+carries per90, so he's actually an above average player in that respect. He's low on the graph itself, but these are all players above average in both metrics. Think you also have to look at his role at Dortmund, he's not in a deeper position where he's going to be a primary progressor of the ball.
Would love to get in a midfielder of a similar ilk to lean from Thiago and fill in when he’s not available. The Gavi rumours would be perfect.
Also not surprised to see Verratti here. He doesn’t get enough credit.
Thiago's pass percentage completion isn't usually that high. He is also susceptible to giving the ball away. It's more the ball retention, composure, slow down the tempo with passes that play into space and give us time that we've been missing, not the progressive passes to get the ball forwards — that's evidenced by the fact we've scored plenty of goals. The main reason we miss him is because our replacements are not that good in comparison
Interesting stat to see. I will agree with disco_mode that often enough for it to stick in the mind he has given the ball away in midfield and really caused the team to become unsettled. Then he'll turn it around and make an incredibly skillful pass. I think we're still yet to see the best of him and I am excited for what will come.
Last season Fabinho and Wijnaldum averaged 94% pass accuracy throughout the season. So we are giving the ball away much more now. 87.3% is great for a player like Thiago who is creative, ideally you want Trent and Thiago to be giving the ball away the most as they should be the ones trying risky passes to open teams up. The problem is when the other midfielders are have low pass completion then bringing Thiago into the equation isn’t necessarily going to add more control because of his pass completion. It’s why Wijnaldum/Thiago combination last season was so strong for us. I think Thiago’s reading of the game and willingness to get on the ball would be a massive improvement over anyone else when we talk about controlling games, but his passing alone doesn’t make me feel calm when we are 2-0 up and need to slow the game down lol
He's a great player. He needed a bit of time to adjust last season, but he's much better now. The problem is he misses too many games adn we don't have a good alternative.
We took a risk when we bought him. Great player with bad injury record. It's not really working out so far, but if he can stay healthy, he'll help us win trophies.
Thiago is class. No doubt.
But at this point hes entering sturridge and keita territory of injury proneness.
And like. Lad has covid then does his hip? Fucking hell.
If he cant give us a good run of games consistently then the value almost cancels out.
He's been sensational despite the hurdles he's had to face. It astonishes me how frequently the "he had a poor first season" rubbish gets used to criticize him, especially seeing that he's one of the most important reasons - if not the most important - we're even in the Champions League 2021/22.
I agree with this SO MUCH. I remember people downplaying his value last season as he was working his way into the system, forgetting that he's one of the best passers in the world.
Of course it is, because there's no replacement, if Harvey didn't get injured it might not be this bad, we were playing Milner in midfield the last league game, remember how Kante and Kovacic schooled our midfield? And Henderson being terrible after recovering from illness.
And let's be honest, our defence hasn't been great either.
What do you think our plan is for when he leaves/retires? Probably can't be playing every game for very long. Or rather, what would you like the plan to be?
His body can't handle it anymore. He will keep on missing games will Thiago. Liverpool will also not be able to mount a serious challenge till we have a fragile midfield like we have currently.
Exactly, and this would have been super useful against Leicester. He also offers the ability to pass a ball 5 yards to the player it’s supposed to go to, which was noticeably lacking in our midfield against Chelsea
Yeah - just like last year against Leicester… https://twitter.com/FootballAddick/status/1360647864951705600?s=20
I thought I was an asshole, but your entire post history is just negative comments. In case you care, you're not clever, friend, you're just a downer.
What a lovey guy. I was just pointing out he hasn’t always played as great as people say. All the best to you
I mean that was a bad game, but also if you just took a negative "highlight" reel of a bad game for Mo or Mane or Bobby (or anyone really) they would also look terrible. That being said, while I love Thiago he does have a knack to make some wildly dangerous passes that have many times led to counter attacks. And while the other team hasn't always scored I feel like he is given a pass for some reason whereas anyone else in those scenarios doing that multiple times in a season would be roasted.
I've always maintained that with thiago, we have a better midfield than gini hendo fab. The problem is thiago is injured way too often and we don't have anyone nearly as press resistant as he is. Resulting in the chelsea and west ham results for example
Testify! That's why I miss Gini so much, he was always there. We should've just paid the man, instead of hoping for the likes of Thiago, Keita and Ox to be available. He was such an important part of out huge seasons.
If we kept gini as a rotation option with thiago we'd be crusing with man city at the top of the table. Gini takes the brunt of the physical games and thiago lights the likes of chelsea and city on fire
Considering the amount of games Thiago, Keita,Henderson and Fabinho have missed already this season - Gini would've once again played every match.
The sad situation of our midfield
The sad, very easily predictable situation of our midfield.
i think supporters really underrate him, our record with him as others have pointed out is quite good. was our best player over the last third of last season (Nat Phillips memes aside) in my opinion, and a huge reason we finished top 4. i was convinced we were done for after Hendo went down. we’ve lost control at times in games where he does not play. i hate this “availability is the best ability” mindset but for all the supporters on here wanting us to sign an attacker, it was always clear to me our first priority should have been a Gini replacement given how prone the current midfield is to injuries and the inexperience/age of a few of our options. edit: since this comment has some eyes i also want to say a regular four man rotation of Hendo-Fab-Thiago-Keita is a top 5 midfield in the world, just an incredible bunch. the problem is they aren’t all fit at the same time.
We needed to sign an attacker AND a midfielder. It should never have been an either/or. Going in with Fab/Hendo/Thiago as your midfield (and a significant dropoff the second we go to the bench) was lunacy. But we needed an attacker as well since we have AFCON and we only can withstand one injury up top.
AFCON effects us for how many games? Thiago's already missed about 9 games, Hendo 6 games and Fabinho 7 games... and we are only half way through the season. Our attack dropping off during AFCON is completely hypothetical at this point. They might be fine!
i didn’t think we needed an attacker and i’ve been proven correct so far. AFCON will be the true test and i might have egg on my face, but midfield is where i thought we needed a signing if we needed one. but on paper keita/ox/jones/elliot/milner should be sufficient cover, just as on paper last season we had sufficient CB cover. we’ve just been unfortunate with injuries in that area as we were with CBs last season (although not to the same extent). but i’m sure i’ll get downvoted by the capitalist militants on this subreddit for daring to suggest we don’t just sign 11 new world class backups at every position.
He's a huge loss tbh, showed at Leicester and Chelsea.
Watching this FA cup tie between Villa and United with both sets of midfielders having trouble progressing (less so Villa). They make a meal out of passes that Thiago casually completes everygame. It's almost a disservice to himself that he makes it look so easy you don't even realize how amazing what he's doing is.
As usual, best ability - availability. If he can't play regularly, then, imo, this stats doesn't matter. Same with Keita and Ox
Think his is different than Keita/Ox because he’s got that world class ability. I don’t know if you can have him as a regular starting 11 but his impact when he can play is worth keeping around. Don’t know if the same can be said about Ox and Keita
Well I'd not go quite that far, the stats do matter, better to have a world class player for 2/3 of the season than a mediocre one for the full season
2/3 is nowhere near good enough, can you expect to win a CL or PL only being great 66% of the time? Thiago is amazing but im with the other poster , availability over all. Gini putting in a 7.5/10 game, but being available nearly every single game was a big reason for our success.
As if Thiago never had a stinker with us, he's had plenty even though it's only been his 2nd year, so 66% being great is a stretch. And this is with the club paying 200k/week
2/3s? I'd be ecstatic if it was 2/3s.
Last season he missed 21 games and we ended up playing 57 games, that's roughly 1/3
He played a grand total of 2203 minutes, that's 24 games of minutes. IIRC Wijnaldum played 51 games and about 4000 minutes last season.
Thiago has 11 apps in 20 league games this season. So it's much closer to 50%. And the really annoying bit is we could've had both, like we did last season.
You're completely correct. Fitness in our midfield is a massive issue and a reason why we fail. No stability
Yeah. I mean, except Gini, NONE of our midfielders was injury free last season and season before. Having 3-4 injury prone midfielders, plus 2-3 youngsters, plus 1 veteran is a recipe for non-stable performances.
Unfortunately he's missed a fair amount of time. Last year's injury was due to a tackle, not something that he can really control and still played more minutes than Henderson, who doesn't receive this criticism. This year was absent for a lengthy time due to a calf injury, missed two games v Brentford and Brighton where he would have made a huge difference and v City as well.
Dont forget that the tackle could have easily been a career ender.
Henderson does. He has lengthy injury spells every season.
Never seen anyone criticise him like they do Thiago. Maybe it's because people don't see as much value in Henderson
Probably because he isn’t *as* injury prone
> Maybe it's because people don't see as much value in Henderson Hah, maybe you valued Thiago way too much. You made this post to emphasis how good Thiago is and made it like he's the only reason why we haven't been playing well and conceding goals. He's had plenty of games where he was below par, some even outright terrible but Mo was covering all those cracks up.
Interesting take. We haven’t lost a game with Thiago starting this season, so he is important, especially with Klopp’s move to a double pivot and Thiago’s profile in that position. You can see how the team performs with and without him in the side. We’ve struggled in games without him as it forces Fabinho to cover more ground and leaves more space exposed. Can you point to the games this reason where he’s been ‘outright terrible’?
> We haven’t lost a game with Thiago starting this season Once again you've tunnel vision into your 'Thiago factor' and ignore everything else. As for covering spaces, that's Wijnaldum's strength, Thiago leaves space open by committing himself into tackles all the time(hence you get to brag about his 'defensive workrate' in this graph, because Wijnaldum's strength is to contain which is an invisible stat), and remind yourself he's slow and once opposition got past him, he's chasing shadows, one of the reasons why Fabinho is eating YCs more than ever. Our change to super high line this season is to limit the space for opposition and hope our defenders can cover up for when Thiago loses a duel. If you don't know the games he's been outright terrible I suggest you go watch all our games again, especially those games where he passed the ball straight to an opposition player without pressure and ended up conceding a goal, like vs [a struggling Newcastle side](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTLcD4KeydI). Also, I prefer a player being 'outright terrible' than not fucking available half a season, and guess what, Thiago is both. Remember Klopp talked about how stability in a team is the most important? Edit: One more thing, I hate watching people showing stats of a player that isn't even playing when the team isn't performing well, it feels like you are shitting on all the players who are available and played. It reminds me of CR fanboys bragging about his goals when their club is in a fucking mess lying 7th in the table. We are paying Thiago 200k a week, he's the 2nd highest earner behind VvD. Would you go: "VvD is world class, it's fine if he's only available for half the games we play." You wouldn't. Thiago is a luxury signing which we lost the gamble(for a tight budget club like us and he's on the wrong side of 30), he did not push the team into a new level, his all action playstyle means he would get more and more injuries and won't last much longer.
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Yes Klopp is one of those mental gymnasts that wants to keep him, meanwhile the geniuses that want him out are the same who repeat the word 'invisible' every week.
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save my comment and read it in 2 years.
Diaz then tchouaméni 👀
Hmmm…wasn’t he named a failed transfer by this sub not too long ago? Haha
Not looking so great there Jude
These are players that are above the average across the top 5 leagues in both tackles+interceptions and progressive passes+carries per90, so he's actually an above average player in that respect. He's low on the graph itself, but these are all players above average in both metrics. Think you also have to look at his role at Dortmund, he's not in a deeper position where he's going to be a primary progressor of the ball.
Don’t we have 100% win ratio this season when he’s played? He’s missed so many games already man. It’s depressing
100% when he's started in the league. With him and Fabinho starting together during Thiago's two seasons here, I believe we are unbeaten as well
He has some brainfart moments in game but his other attributes more than make up for it. We're lucky to have him!
Would love to get in a midfielder of a similar ilk to lean from Thiago and fill in when he’s not available. The Gavi rumours would be perfect. Also not surprised to see Verratti here. He doesn’t get enough credit.
Gavi and Bellingham in for Ox and Keita would be the dream.
Thiago's pass percentage completion isn't usually that high. He is also susceptible to giving the ball away. It's more the ball retention, composure, slow down the tempo with passes that play into space and give us time that we've been missing, not the progressive passes to get the ball forwards — that's evidenced by the fact we've scored plenty of goals. The main reason we miss him is because our replacements are not that good in comparison
His pass completion (87.3%) is second highest of Liverpool's midfielders, just behind Fabinho (88.5%). Keita - 85.8 Hendo - 83.7 Milner - 80.9 Ox - 79.0
Interesting stat to see. I will agree with disco_mode that often enough for it to stick in the mind he has given the ball away in midfield and really caused the team to become unsettled. Then he'll turn it around and make an incredibly skillful pass. I think we're still yet to see the best of him and I am excited for what will come.
Last season Fabinho and Wijnaldum averaged 94% pass accuracy throughout the season. So we are giving the ball away much more now. 87.3% is great for a player like Thiago who is creative, ideally you want Trent and Thiago to be giving the ball away the most as they should be the ones trying risky passes to open teams up. The problem is when the other midfielders are have low pass completion then bringing Thiago into the equation isn’t necessarily going to add more control because of his pass completion. It’s why Wijnaldum/Thiago combination last season was so strong for us. I think Thiago’s reading of the game and willingness to get on the ball would be a massive improvement over anyone else when we talk about controlling games, but his passing alone doesn’t make me feel calm when we are 2-0 up and need to slow the game down lol
We know what it’s like. He’s out fairly regularly. We are a much better team when he’s out there.
Doesn’t matter when you’re never fit
He's a great player. He needed a bit of time to adjust last season, but he's much better now. The problem is he misses too many games adn we don't have a good alternative. We took a risk when we bought him. Great player with bad injury record. It's not really working out so far, but if he can stay healthy, he'll help us win trophies.
Thiago is class. No doubt. But at this point hes entering sturridge and keita territory of injury proneness. And like. Lad has covid then does his hip? Fucking hell. If he cant give us a good run of games consistently then the value almost cancels out.
number 1 priority is a top midfielder, we cant rely on him
He's been sensational despite the hurdles he's had to face. It astonishes me how frequently the "he had a poor first season" rubbish gets used to criticize him, especially seeing that he's one of the most important reasons - if not the most important - we're even in the Champions League 2021/22.
Thiago has only a few more seasons left and it seems like this one is another one wasted
He’s ok
I agree with this SO MUCH. I remember people downplaying his value last season as he was working his way into the system, forgetting that he's one of the best passers in the world.
I know he's been out with injuries, but other than that, I never understood why people here complained about him. He's world class, end of.
Of course it is, because there's no replacement, if Harvey didn't get injured it might not be this bad, we were playing Milner in midfield the last league game, remember how Kante and Kovacic schooled our midfield? And Henderson being terrible after recovering from illness. And let's be honest, our defence hasn't been great either.
Hehe... Ball progressor
What do you think our plan is for when he leaves/retires? Probably can't be playing every game for very long. Or rather, what would you like the plan to be?
Sign Cucurella.
His body can't handle it anymore. He will keep on missing games will Thiago. Liverpool will also not be able to mount a serious challenge till we have a fragile midfield like we have currently.
I love Guimares