Liverpool vs Chelsea: The mayhem of Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane and how they can elevate Reds’ level once more
The Brazilian’s introduction at half-time changed the game for Jurgen Klopp’s side before they prevailed on penalties
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Your support makes all the difference.If the true significance of the Super Cup to Liverpool was over its physical effect, and that unnecessary period of extra-time did for their endurance levels, it also displayed the extra value of a quality that isn’t so much enduring but getting stronger.
It’s also mostly mental.
That is the evident understanding between Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino. It is an element that could yet elevate Liverpool’s game, in this season where there are so many questions about their ability to sustain the same level.
It is Mohamed Salah that so often personifies these questions, and for all that the singular focus on the striker can see his forward partners perceived as little more than a support cast, the dynamic has allowed them to forge an understanding that enhances them as players and offers a further platform to the Egyptian.
One is untraceable movement. The other is uncatchable movement. Together they are mayhem.
They of course linked up for both goals in the Super Cup in Istanbul, and just generally pulled Chelsea’s entire defence all over the pitch.
There was a good half-hour period after Firmino came on when Frank Lampard’s players – and especially his centre-halves – just didn’t know where to go.
In the initial eight-minute burst after the Brazilian’s introduction alone, he had created chances for Fabinho, Jordan Henderson and himself and of course created that first goal for Mane. Kepa Arrizabalaga and his centre-halves may have prevaricated, but Mane knew full well to go in full gun as Firmino deftly touched the ball on for him.
There was a spell last season when Mane’s goals saw him as praised as Salah, and the sheer power of his shooting means his impact can be emphatic, and unmistakable.
That isn’t quite the case with Firmino, whose qualities can be more subtle, but no less significant. He may be very far from the best player in the world, as that catchy song played after the trophy celebration proclaims, but he is certainly one of Liverpool’s most important.
His instinctive understanding of the game just instantly brings a deeper understanding within the entire team. His intelligence just knits so much together.
In that, Firmino is probably the player whose pure movement has the most effect of anyone in the game since Thomas Muller. He uses his running so well, knowing the multi-levelled damage a single well-timed sprint can have. There was one moment in the Super Cup when – of course – one such movement took out three Chelsea players... and created the space for Divock Origi. Mane’s second came from a similar dynamic, even if it was the source was this time a run with the ball.
It is little surprise that Klopp knows precisely how to use him, coming from a football culture in Germany that has so honed coaching in this area, attempting to get their players to fully comprehend that use of space. Muller just had an instinctive understanding of it. So too does Firmino.
Mane then evidently as an instinctive understanding of what Firmino will do.
“You learn from a game and it was a big change that we made because Bobby is different from all the other players in the world, probably, in that position,” Klopp said.
Contrast to those in that position at the other end. Chelsea currently look so one-dimensional compared to Liverpool. Their attacking players all have different qualities, but none are fused together. Some of that is obviously down to how little time Lampard has had in the job but some of it also down to basic ability. Few have the ability Firmino does.
Hence Klopp’s decision to throw him in, despite a lack of fitness work due to the Copa America. Firmino thereby solved an issue on the night, but only brought up another.
“It was really really intense and it wasn’t the plan for us to have him play nearly 80 minutes,” Klopp lamented, amid a series of quotes where he lamented the need for extra-time and described it as “a killer”.
“He had pretty much no pre-season. That’s been a problem for us.”
Through his running, Firmino poses a real problem for defences, and creates so much Mane and Salah. The bigger question now is whether he can quite keep running at the same pelt.
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