I hope that one good thing that will come out of Firmino's untimely knock is that Mane will used more often by Klopp as a centre-forward. When I saw Origi's name on the team-sheet, I thought it would be another game where the front 3 struggles to string moves together, with Origi's poor hold-up and combination game exacerbating Mane's and Salah's recently erratic passing. But Klopp found a good solution – by sticking Mane up front he avoided making Origi the focal point and took advantage of Sadio's predatory instincts in the box. If you think about it, in addition to speed he has lot of great "pure" centre-forward qualities, like being able to receive and protect the ball with his back to goal, turn in any direction in a tight space and strike the ball well off balance. Even when his first touch is erratic, his quick thinking can turn it into an advantage, like he did with the 2nd goal. I also saw a stat a while back that he was our 2nd best player in aerial duels after Van Dijk.
Another benefit of sticking Mane up front is that he doesn't have to pass the ball too often – and when he does it's a short pass or a one-two, something he is pretty good at unlike the visionary "eye of the needle" passes required of a typical #10. Given all this, I'm surprised Klopp hasn't played him as a striker more often and now that he's proven he can do it I could also see it working even when Firmino is back in a 4-2-3-1, like this:
--------------Mane-------------
Origi/Ox--Firmino-----Salah
We should also give credit to Milner. People started almost giving up on him after a wretched performance at RB against United – and sure, Trent came in and showed exactly why he is the first-choice right-back – but Milner also shut up his critics today. He set the tone for the game with his energy and I think his ability to find space as an attacker is under-appreciated – someone like Thomas Muller has a reputation as an expert at finding space ("raumdeuter" as he called himself in an interview) but honestly Milner is every bit as good at this. He always makes an extra couple of steps to make sure he is ready to receive the ball in space and he made our sputtering attack run smoothly in this game – but also roared back destroying anything in his path whenever the ball was lost. Vintage Milly!
Well done Origi; he worked his arse off to get back and defend every time and provided a goal threat from the wing, even produced a couple of nice switches to the RW – Salah definitely appreciated those! Still seemed not too sure what to do when the ball was at his feet, but that can improve with confidence and rhythm. He is making a decent case to be our 4th-choice attacker, at least until Ox comes back.
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