He's the least convincing of a series of very good purchases this summer. He's also the least experienced, has been starving for actual match time for a year, and is now in a new, super competitive league, having never settled in his first move.
He would have never started this game if we had other options. He isnt normally putting in 90 mins and we seem to be building up his fitness with the same protocol we use for our youth, rather than the first team regulars, due to the time off.
Most of this has fuck all to do with him. The worry is that now after a year, and him being a pretty confusing purchase in some ways, he's got a new manager coming in and another new set of things to adapt to.
He looks a little lost, but that's sort of the pattern in midfield. The player looks better when just doing their thing. Then they get 9 billion instructions, overthink everything, are constantly thinking where they should be off the ball, what triggers there are etc. etc. Then, maybe we see what we are meant to. First the machine of the player then maybe, some sort of character. It's an ugly process, but it won't be close to completing under klopp.
There no question there's something there. But there's also tons of work to be done. He wasn't liable to figure it out against arsenal at their place, was he? What are we really talking about here?