A Liverpool team that features Coutinho, Firmino and Mario Gotze behind a fit and firing Daniel Sturridge is one worthy of the fire emoticon that Twitter users so love to put after everything, but that doesn\u2019t mean that we should rule out the possibility of Firmino being used as the main striking option in the future, should the game situation call for it.<\/p>\n
The beauty of Firmino is that he knows how to score all sorts of different goals. He\u2019s hit a far few belters during his short time at Anfield so far, but he\u2019s also scored the more intricate, get-on-the-end-of-a-ten-pass-move type goal, too. On top of that his goal against United in the Europa League was the ultimate combination of poacher-meets-intelligent-player. He was in the right place at the right time, but he still bought himself a few vital moments before turning the ball into the back of the net.<\/p>\n
Much like with Origi, few Liverpool supporters will be happy if Firmino is the only striking option we\u2019ve got moving into next season. But considering some questioned whether he was good enough when he first signed, he\u2019s certainly proved his doubters wrong. He\u2019s also not had all that long to adjust to the English game, when you think about it, and considering the way in which Mezut Ozil has come on leaps and bounds this season after a tough introduction to Premier League football in the last campaign, you have to think the Brazilian will be even better once he\u2019s fully adjusted to life on Merseyside.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an odd one, the Danny Ings situation. He\u2019s not only the forgotten man as far as Liverpool are concerned, with his cruciate ligament injury essentially ruling him out for the majority of the season, but even his fee doesn\u2019t seem to have been figured out yet. The Reds will have to pay a fee to Burnley based on the decision of a tribunal, but the people involved in deciding it have been locked in a basement at the bottom of the FA\u2019s HQ since August.<\/p>\n
Of all of Liverpool\u2019s strikers it is Ings that I feel sorry for the most. Whilst Daniel Sturridge has had major injury problems throughout his career, he\u2019s still had opportunities to prove to both Brendan Rodgers and J\u00fcrgen Klopp exactly what it is that he brings to the table. Similarly Christian Benteke might not have impressed, but at least he\u2019s been fit enough to get onto the pitch, whilst Firmino and Origi have both become firm favourites of the new Reds boss.<\/p>\n
smileimage9 \/ shutterstock.com<\/p><\/div>\n
Ings, meanwhile, injured himself in training just moments after Klopp was installed as Rodgers\u2019 replacement. It was as if his poor knee found the whole thing far too exciting and simply imploded at the very thought of all of the pressing and closing it was going to get to do.<\/p>\n
Ings, you feel, is a player that Klopp will love. He deserved more than to see his goal against Norwich at Anfield end up essentially pointless, with the Canaries striking back and earning themselves a point when all of the joy should have been his. That he scored the goal in the derby was great for him too, with Liverpool fans immediately taking to his work ethic and ability to keep running.<\/p>\n
Rodgers, for reasons best known to the Northern Irishman, favoured using the former Burnley front man out of position, something you feel Klopp won\u2019t do. If a front four of Coutinho, Firmino, Gotze and Sturridge is enough to terrify any defences, what would a front unit of Lallana, Firmino, Ings and Origi do to tiring legs that just want to be left alone? It\u2019s a pressing, closing down machine waiting to happen.<\/p>\n
The only real question mark around Ings is whether or not he\u2019ll be the same player when he returns from his injury. Given he\u2019s never really been blessed with blistering pace, you have to assume should be ok. If he is then, at the age of just 23, he could go on to be a real asset under the management of a guy who looks for work-rate from his players almost above anything else.<\/p>\n
Mario Balotelli<\/h3>\n
Ah Mario, you crazy fool, you. Why did Rodgers sign him? Why did he come? Why didn\u2019t he, you know, actually run around a bit and stuff?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll be honest, I do think Mario Balotelli actually tried harder than he\u2019s given credit for during his time at Anfield. He was never good enough, don\u2019t get me wrong, but he also wasn\u2019t the lazy, completely useless player that many Liverpool fans decided he was. In the semi-final of the FA Cup against Villa at Wembley he actually looked the player most likely to make a difference when he replaced Lazar Markovic at half-time.<\/p>\n
photoplanet.am \/ shutterstock.com<\/p><\/div>\n
But if the Christian Benteke experiment is one we can declare a waste of time and try to scrub from our memory then the Mario Balotelli one is even worse. He could have been so much better for us. He could have made a real difference. Instead he\u2019ll be consigned to a dustbin with a label on it saying \u2018Mistakes\u2019 and, like the residents of Room 101, have to spend eternity talking to Julian Dicks and El-Hadj Diouf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the final part of a three part series, I\u2019m going to have a look at Liverpool\u2019s forward line and see what options are open to J\u00fcrgen Klopp as we head into the summer. For the purposes of ease I\u2019m only going to talk about players that are officially on the club\u2019s books, regardless of how excited we might all be getting about the chance of Mario Gotze arriving at Anfield in the summer. I\u2019m also not going to bother with any youth players. Aside from the fact that Jerome Sinclair is as good as gone from the club, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":422,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions\/422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}