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In the second half, Jurgen Klopp could still be heard barking instructions at Thiago Alcantara. Empty stadiums don’t do you any favors when you’re having a bad game.
Here, however, Thiago, the experienced Spanish international, was not playing badly. Perhaps Klopp was simply struggling to break a habit developed during the weekend horror show in Leicester.
No, this was a redemptive night for the Power King villains.
Goalkeeper Alisson made important saves and delivered the ball excellently. Young Turkish defender Ozan Kabak ended the night with a split lip, a huge hole in the back of a sock but with pride swollen from a European evening from which he will have emerged as a bigger and better man. He’s only 20 years old.
And Thiago also took his own steps forward. Small but enough to absorb Saturday’s home game against Everton, which will be tougher than this test against an imaginary German team that performed well below expected levels.
In Budapest the big mistakes came from the Bundesliga team. For Liverpool, on such a miserable streak of self-inflicted misery, that will have been a welcome change.
It was a good night for Klopp’s team and Thiago was able to play a more familiar and calm role in midfield.
He wasn’t spectacular or fussy, but that was a good sign. He wasn’t hired by Bayern Munich last summer to be those things. He was hired to quietly bind the transition chains from defense to attack and this was a night when his natural play came easier for him.
Thiago’s failure to start the weekend’s game at a time when Liverpool have no injured midfielders while another, Jordan Henderson, is being deployed as a central defender, told all about his recent troubles.
Statistics don’t do you much favors either. Of the eight games they have started in the Premier League this season, Liverpool have only two wins.
But in the face of all that is a clear pedigree and vast experience. Interestingly, this Champions League match was Liverpool’s first. Your most recent? That happened in the final of last season that his team Bayern Munich won. He has also won the competition with Barcelona.
It is this kind of authority that Thiago was expected to bring to Liverpool’s midfield. He seemed like the perfect signing when Klopp bought him in the summer. He had the look of a banker.
But a Covid-19 infection in the fall didn’t help his progress, while he has bad memories of facing Everton this weekend. That game is remembered for Virgil van Dijk’s season-ending injury, but Thiago also limped off with a knee problem and wouldn’t be back until the other side of Christmas.
Things like this don’t help any player, but it’s even more annoying when you’re a player trying to settle into a new league. No matter how good you are, Premier Leagues are hard to get used to and nowhere is the increase in speed and physique as pronounced as in the center of midfield.
At Leicester on Saturday, where Thiago replaced James Milner after an early injury, this was precisely his problem. Too often he was two feet from where he needed to be. It’s all it takes to make a fundamental difference.
Here was evidence of that from the beginning. Thiago was late to the challenge in the first minute and probably should have been booked.
Then when Leipzig created an opportunity for Dani Olmo to jump in and head into the post, it seemed too easy for the nominal home team to pass the ball around Thiago in a triangle 35 meters from goal. At that moment the midfielder did not seem to know whether to hold or press and in the end he did not do it to great effect either.
However, Thiago can read the game and he can pass. Has a natural understanding of time and space. Nor is he a coward. Nor is he afraid of work.
And, as the game progressed, he started to play quite well.
A first pass over the top to Mo Salah in the 13th minute was delightful, while back-to-back defensive headers finally started a Liverpool counterattack that led Andrew Robertson to nearly score from distance. Shortly after that, he stuck his foot in to fire Sadio Mane. From that play, Roberto Firmino had a header annulled.
His second half, as it turned out, lasted only 25 minutes. But by the time he was replaced by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, the game and possibly the tie was won.
Saturday’s game will be more difficult, but now Thiago has at least one platform.
Source: m.allfootballapp.com
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