IT all started in October 2013. I’m doing an Anfield Wrap podcast the day after our 3-1 home win against Crystal Palace. The game marked the return of Luis Suarez, a gem of a goal by Daniel Sturrridge which, due to there being so many last season, has been lost in the annals of time, and a more prosaic Steven Gerrard pen.
Elsewhere, we’d conceded an inevitable goal thanks to sloppy concentration and our propensity to fall asleep in the second half of games. Plenty to discuss there then. All is going well, although at one point I am to recommend a loan spell for the day’s right wing back, Raheem Sterling. I’m often amazed they allow me on.
Of the handful I’ve done, it is my favourite podcast. Not because I was any good or anything like that. Christ, no. The Raheem dog egg alone put pay to that. No, I was average at best and in some ways my answering the opening question (‘What would your specialist subject on Mastermind be?’ followed by a question on your subject) marked a rare high. Later, I’d receive an honest appraisal from my mum. She told me, in her usually candid and forthright way, to stop mumbling, to speak at some form of recognisable volume and to stop saying ‘Er’ at the beginning of every sentence. Scouse mums.
No, I enjoyed it because about two thirds of the way into the recording, Neil asked me a question which absolutely threw me. I was totally stymied. Fogged. At a loss. I love moments like that — being offered a view that seems so leftfield that it absolutely flummoxes you; only this one was recorded and sent to the world. There were quite a few ‘ers’ then, I can tell you.
I’m normally fine when it comes to thinking on my feet. After all, in that very hour we’d already discussed the Sherlock Holmes short stories, the indie band Ride and the film Dirty Dancing. As you do. This, however, caused me to gulp pints of air through a mouth that could barely close. I stared at the man with an almost paralysing sense of confusion.
The question then. I can’t remember it word for word but it was something along the lines of: “We’ve grown up with Liverpool having great midfielders. From Souness, Jimmy Case, Alonso, Gerrard, Mascherano etc — we love our midfielders. Glorious players. Meanwhile, Man United have won loads of leagues through being good in both boxes. Do we put too much onus on central midfield when being brilliant in other areas wins leagues?”
I stared at him for what seemed like a couple of hours, vainly hoping that Gareth would leap in and end my torturous dead air. He did not.
It seemed an extraordinary concept to me, but not quite as heretical as I considered at the time. It still seemed a bit jazz hands, a bit ‘New Coke’. Less onus on midfield? As a man of falling years he might as well have asked me if we should give drinking water and using oxygen a miss. It spoke of a world I wasn’t prepared to accept. Liverpool less reliant on midfield?
I love central mid. If I had been any good I would have played there. Scoring goals never interested me, which was just as well. I wanted to be the player who created the magic. The unsung hero. The necessary cog. The heart of the rhythm section. I wanted to be more Brian Jones than Keith Richards. I’ll give you the bullets and you do the rest. Yet he has a point. I can’t deny that. Anderson and Nani have won loads of trophies for Man U. This required thought. About 15 months’ worth.
Souness and Case, Whelan and McMahon. Alonso and Mascherano. Redknapp and Barnes. Rafa spoke of controlling games, using the midfield to win the ball and either press or release pressure through possession. Not everyone needs partnerships like that now. Look at Chelsea. A great keeper, a fantastic and criminally underrated centre back in Cahill and Costa at the other end of the pitch to win them games.
Yes, Neil has a point. I can see the value of the theory but I’m not convinced. I’ve tried to work out whether that’s just because I’m old and resistant to change but I don’t think that’s it. I like midfielders, damn it. I like pressing midfielders and I like defensive midfielders. Brendan half agrees with me, too. He loves an attacking midfield and last season bore witnesses to everything on the pitch being turned into goals. A strong defensive centre mid would only be welcomed if he could throw in a few assists too. Goals are everything.
Can you stop goals? Yeah. Okay, but can you score them? That seems to be the main criteria but yet it doesn’t explain Joe Allen or Lucas Leiva. *If* the Brazilian is off to Italy and, given the manager’s preferences and reluctance to buy for that position, is this the end of the specialist defensive midfielder?
It’s a strange role and one that is sacrificed and recruited according to opponent. Necessary for City away, less so for Anfield cannon fodder. Their job is, of course, to break up play and slow things down if needed. Dietmar Hamann was great at that, and even better at drawing fouls to take the pressure off his back four. When you know your quarry aren’t going to be anything like adventurous you can give him the day off and send him off to the safari park with Jose Enrique and his selfie stick.
Most defensive midfielders can’t do anything but that role. Look at Lucas when he goes forward. He needs to pass rather than have a go himself. Defensive midfielders, as a rule, don’t score goals. And I love goals. Adore them. Any type, really. Antonio Nunez’s goal in the League Cup final sent me into paroxysms of pleasure and that was far from pretty, but I do like a defensive screen. There is virtue in a boring holding player who just steps in and breaks things up when needed. That’s all they may do and it looks uncomplicated but they’re still vital regardless of the age. People will always adorn their walls with pictures of either glamorous end of the pitch rather than Dunga or Makelele but they are just as important. Look what happens when we’re light in that department.
It may seem churlish to bring up Brendan’s bad games given that they were so long ago but his debut v WBA and the Arsenal home game a few weeks later show the dangers of an open door midfield policy when Lucas was injured. Centre backs don’t like strikers running at them and then running behind them and any top heavy side are always going to struggle if the back door is open.
If Lucas is to go, and this minute’s rumour is that we want a sale and cash rather than a loan and/or instalments, is he likely to be replaced? So far Brendan has not bought a recognised defensive midfielder in his time here, preferring to use pressers, outright attackers or Joe Allen (That’s harsh, isn’t it? Sometimes he’s lovely to watch, Joe. I just don’t know what his job is. Not much of a tackler, hardly any assists, fewer goals).
If this is a new age or style, and Brendan, to his credit, is keen to try anything, is his vision a bold step to finding a new way to play or the Emperor’s New Clothes? The back three/four are in the altogether.
Tottenham tried something similar back in 1994 with Jurgen Klinsmann and his mates just trying to outscore their own defensive blunders. They finished seventh after replacing the gung-ho Ossie Ardiles with the more pragmatic and extraordinarily haired Gerry Francis. It’s great to watch but if your strikers misfire you’re in trouble. You need very, very good strikers for that to work as we saw last season. If you haven’t got them and are without a decent screen, you’re looking at a low goal difference.
This stretches to the continent too. In our heyday we were great at boring out 0-0s abroad and then battering teams at Anfield. That’s going to be difficult to do without a strong defensive core. We can’t, for example, do what Chelsea did at Anfield last season and absolutely strangle the game (with Schurrle playing the unusual role as second left back) and you need that weapon in your artillery at times. Sometimes a new way to draw is the same as a new way to win.
I hope we don’t sell Lucas. Despite the boos and jeers and his uncanny ability to give away free kicks in the most dangerous yards of the pitch, I’ve always liked him. I even liked his silly Alice band along with his Roger Daltrey haircut. In his early days his major crime seemed to be that he wasn’t Javier Mascherano but he became an important player for Liverpool. My point is, it’s also an important position for Liverpool and if we’re going to sell I’m uneasy about him being the last player of that kind.
Goals are, indeed, everything, but a strong midfield can stop them as well as provide them.
Pics: David Rawcliffe/Propaganda
Good article Karl, I reckon being asked that question about midfielders would have flummoxed me as well. I don’t want to see Lucas go either as I really reckon we will miss what he does on the pitch, the sort of stuff most fans don’t see or give him credit for. I read recently that in the last 10 premiership games in which Lucas played LFC gained 21 points, in the last 10 games in which he played no part LFC gained 7 points. That tells me we can’t lose this man unless the manager is planning to replace him with a similar but upgraded model.
Yes, look at Chelsea. A midfield pair of Fabregas and Matic. I guess Jose figures that the central pairing remains an important part of football because he bought them both in the past 12mths. But what does he know about football and winning trophies?
Yeah, I reckon Fabragas has been just as key to Chelsea’s improvement this season as Costa has
Didn’t Keith technically play rhythm guitar in the Stones? Jones was on the sitar on “Paint It Black” and they replaced him with Mick Taylor, who’s responsible for some of the greatest lead parts ever recorded.
During one radio broadcast a couple of years ago, after a fine piece of pocket-picking by Lucas, the commentator – I think it was Pleat, said “This boy is capable of much more than Liverpool asks of him or allows him to contribute.” Spot on. Rafa turned him into a defensive mid-fielder, because he was an exciting ‘box to box’ player when we recruited him.
When we were trying to off-load him I said to my son “If we sell Lucas it will come back and bite us on the arse!” , and that comment is more apposite than ever. If you analyse our goals conceded over the last couple of seasons, the bull came down our right flank, purportedly patrolled by Gerrard and Johnson with Lucas the final line. Too often Lucas was left to clean up after the other two. This is not an attack on either player – I think SG is our finest ever but he uid defensively suspect, and Glen is a lovely footballer who has been playing in the wrong position all his career.
I think Lucas should go, for Lucas’ sake. He would shine in a league where great pace is worth less than positional awareness. He has proven his value to LFC enough times and must be weary of the regular debates.
Red, I considered my Tommy Ramone to his Johnny but thought it too much. Considered Mick Taylor too.
Good read. As I posted on here a couple of days ago , he ran the midfield against an admittedly dreadful Sunderland. With Mr Gerrard’s impending departure I think it’s imperative that we keep Lucas Leiva .We have some fantastic young talents but we need to retain some experience and defensive discipline alongside that youthful exuberance and energy.
He’s a very good player. Selling him would be madness.
I’d love a DM who could do a bit of everything like Souness, but they are few and far between.
Lucas should be next years Captain rather than bombed out of this club, he is a Man and a Player that I think others would follow, he would lead and yet he would be loved by the squad. Sad days if he is to go
All of the above and the little matter of how he loves LFC – no slacker is our Lucas
With the possible exception of Allen, I don’t think there’s another LFC first-team player who understands the game of football, tactically, as much as or better than Lucas.
That ‘yard of pace’ that people are maintaining he’s lost is not quite a yard. You cannot possibly compare his present, ever-improving performances to the absolute zenith of his performances right before he did his ACL. I’ve been a loyal Lucas supporter from day one, to a fault. Even I was surprised at how mobile he was during that period, combined with incredible timing, ruggedness and his usual excellent ‘strategic’ passing. He may very well reach that again for a short period of time, but expecting THAT to be his standard is bonkers (insert the necessary references to ‘chasing a high’, gary abblets, etc.)
Great to see some recognition for an important position in the side, a great player and a really wonderful person. I’ve been a big fan of Lucas over the years. If he was English he would probably be vice-captain and pencilled in for the job next year.
In many ways he suffered because he wasn’t *that* kind of Brazillian when he joined the PL. Always more defensively minded, Lucas doesn’t offer the creativity of, say, Phil C. That’s not to dismiss the importance of the work he does, fizzing those passes forward, playing on the front foot.
I’ll be genuinely gutted if he goes now given that his return to the side has also seen an upturn in our fortunes. Let him go and not replace him with a defensive mid and I worry that we really will become far too exposed at the back and lack a leader on the pitch. As noted on this week’s pod, Lucas’ management of Phil C was spot on. He’s a player’s player.
Right on all counts. No sulking, no histrionics (but quiet tears, apparently, when he was being dissed by fans. His father told him to buck up and show them what you are made of, and he did,)
As I posted on another thread, he was described as “possibly the nicest man in football” and I’ve seen nothing to indicate otherwise. A quiet achiever and a natural leader of allowed to be. And he DOES have the technical skills we expect of Brazilians, but never gets the chance to use them. I remember a pirouette a couplr if years ago that would have made Suarez or Coutino jealous. I hope he stays but won’t blame him if he goes, and flourishes elsewhere.
All of the above GrkStav/Jon/Kevin, All of the above!
Since selling Lucas would be against all that is logic and common sense we’ll probably just go ahead and do just that. Even if a similar or for that matter “better” player is available I really can’t see us benefiting from that kind of business at this moment in time. Too me that would just mean a unnecessary movement within the squad which isn’t something we should look be looking for.
Lucas also gives us some much needed experience and he is a true top level professional footballer. He also seems to contribute to a lot of the feel good wine within the squad and that is simply priceless.
We’re losing the 700 game experiences of Steven Gerrard, it would be complete and utter madness to sell Lucas this window or the next, we simply must keep him
The idea of having no defensive midfielder and still hoping to function properly as a football team is like the mentality of a 10 year old playing FIFA
Before anyone point out Ferguson’s team going without a holding mid, they consistently had the best centre backs and keepers to compensate for that, andhis midfield always work hard defensively, can’t say the same as our midfield that’s half asleep most times we don’t have the ball
Not to mention Riley and Webb who were always excellent for them when it came to the big games.
Absolutely agree. Lucas must stay!
Must start off by stating I’ve not been a fan of Lucas for a while.
Was more than happy to give him a chance at the start and he did well to overcome the trials and tribulations to shine for a couple of seasons. That those seasons coincide with our worst team in say 10 years, may or may not be notable.
For me Lucas is the ultimate in the limited player. His role is automatically limiting. Screen the defence, break up attacks and give it to someone more talented. Given our style of play, the number of games we play against poorer opposition he is often a waste of a shirt much as Hamann was sometimes (though he was a much better footballer). Secondly, it’s whether he’s much cop any more in that role. As noted, the silly free kicks are very poor for that position. He was directly responsible for Skrtel’s booking v Swansea ruling him out of the Leicester game, in which Lucas also picked up a stupid booking of his own.
Beyond that, he has next to nothing. I break out in a sweat when I see him and Sakho exchanging passes in tight areas and he contributes nothing to our attacking game.
Compare all that with Schneiderlein’s performance at the weekend. A masterclass in screening, choosing when to be positive and tackle and then in having some ability to build attacks.
So while, ordinarily, I’d be happy for him to go and us to trade up the timing seems really off. Like it or not he’s a first teamer at present. I’ve long since vouched for Allen to take up that role but he’s been injured for yonks and not impressed when played there. There’s some talk of Delph who seems a decent player and relatively cheap (though would no doubt be on a stonking contract and be difficult to remove if he stunk) but surely it’d be better to bring the new guy in and have him earn his shirt by out-performing the Brazilian. If Inter are ready to pay that much for him I doubt their interest will have evaporated by the summer.
In terms of recruitment and retention strategies at the club, it’s madness from top to bottom, so it really wouldn’t surprise me if Lucas goes. It’d be a needless and self-inflicted wound, but I woundn’t put it past us. (It’s like getting rid of Maxi a year early….I don’t think there’ll be riots, but there’ll be plenty of talk about how we miss him in the months to come).
I’m wondering whether Rodger wants Allen sitting there instead? Most of the times there’s been a straight choice between the two, he’s gone for Allen. Because I can’t see them getting a CM in this window….(Allen is a fine technical player, but doesn’t score, create, stop or dominate…..a bit of a pointless player if all’s told)….
Big test this, and will say a depressing amount about FSG…..Ayre probably patting himself on the back about getting rid of a big wage, but this squad would have got over the line with a bit more experience last year, and we are in danger of losing. Penny wise and pound simple, unfortunately, are the LFC board.
I have to agree with many of the points here; frankly, in our current state it would be bonkers, if not downright perverse, to let Lucas go.
Even putting to one side his experience, professionalism and general air of being a decent sort, you can’t let that type of specialist position vacant. You at least need the option, in some games or in parts of certain matches. And if he were to leave, not only does he need replacing, but the man coming in needs to be an upgrade. For much of the past two seasons I’ve thought that if I had the dough and could personally gift LFC a player, I’d buy Javi Martinez: someone with a whole bunch of skills in his locker but who crucially adds that defensive shield to protect that lads at the back. Or failing that, just have Masch back. No one is likely to agree with Woy (ever) about him being the best player in the world last year (albeit an interesting choice, given how Masch seemed to skedaddle as soon as the Hodge entered the dug out) but he was and is superb. Anyone doubt that if he’d been around for a few key matches last year we mightn’t have clinched the league? Yet how many of these high calibre defensive players are out there, and can we afford them? Why haven’t we expressed an interest in Schneiderlinn? I’m with Neil with the both boxes theory, but we can’t simply pretend that defensive midfield doesn’t exist, at least some of the time…
Are we not getting ahead of ourselves here? Is there actually any shred of truth in these rumours or just tabloid/internet muck?
Because only a complete idiot could fail to see what Lucas offers and how he’s steadied our season. He’s been our most important player in the last couple of months. I’ll be stunned if Brendan lets him go now. Stunned I say!
Have you forgotten the jettisoning of Reina when we had no goalkeepers?
I wouldnt be, I don’t think Lucas is wanted by Brendan so we get this merry go round of him not playing, results go south, Lucas comes in finally and we settle and start getting results.
I think Brendan doesnt see him in the same light as many sadly and will be quite happy to let him go.
Liked him from day one and still do. I felt awful for him when the boo boys were giving him grief; I’ve read comments from many a Liverpool fan over the years, saying something like “as long as a player respects the shirt enough to give their give their heart and soul every time they step onto the field I’ll support him”, but that seems to be more of an empty platitude these days.
Lucas clearly loves being a Liverpool player. He never hides, never shirks and never fails to put in a shift. Even when he was at his lowest and every touch seemed to generate a chorus of groans or boos, he was always making himself available, always asking for the ball. Not once did I ever get the impression that he was thinking; ‘well, stuff them, I’ll just do the easy stuff and pick up my money every week’.
Sure, he picks up yellow cards, but at the risk of blasphemy I’d suggest that he’d pick up fewer if he didn’t have to cover for SG as well as doing his own work.
He is also a steadying influence on the back four/three when he plays and he does have an eye for an incisive pass when he fells he can express himself – there is more of the ‘real’ Brazilian in him than people give him credit for.
I’ve seen a few rumours that Liverpool will be in for Alex Song in the summer as a replacement for Lucas, but while Song has had some good games he was awful against Everton in the cup replay. The difference between Lucas’ best and worst is minimal – he doesn’t have many brilliant games, but he doesn’t have many shockers either. He is steady and gives everything he’s got for the shirt every week.
All of which probably means he’ll be off to Italy in the nest few weeks!
“No, he is not one that we would want to lose in January. Of course at the end of the season everything is looked at again, but the team is in a good momentum.”
Other quotes are available.
Wonder what the next bit if gossip will do the rounds for people to get their knickers in a twist over.
Just sayin’
Only obliquely connected to the Lucas matter, but I am very surprised – even apprehensive – at our failure to sign a keeper when we are over halfway through the window. The issue has been relevant since shortly after Mignolet was signed, and still we haven’t resolved it, if only to get us a standby. We are said to be looking at a different keeper every other day (which would do Mignolet’s fragile confidence the world of good) but it strikes me that we are inept, or, even worse, complacent for no good reason. I happen to believe that we would have finished top last season even with Reina at his worst. Much of our defensive uncertainty was due to the keeper. Whenever we pass it back to Simpn your heart skips a beat because you know that there is every chance he’ll stuff it up.