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Lucas Leiva’s seven year old Liverpool career has been a roller coaster ride to say the least. He has made more comebacks to the Liverpool first team than the number of times The Undertaker has been brought back from the dead.
Liverpool’s golden midfield generation is now a thing of the past
Defensive midfield is a very important position for teams these days. Players like Claude Makelele, Xabi Alonso and Sergio Busquets have gone on to become masters at this role and have helped their respective teams achieve a lot of success by breaking up play by sitting in front of defence and starting attacks from the base of midfield.
Liverpool haven’t had a proper defensive midfielder since the much loved Xabi Alonso departed to Real Madrid. During Rafa Benitez’s era the Reds had Alonso pulling the strings in midfield. Any adjective that you can use to describe the Spaniard use will not do justice to the 2-time Euro and FIFA World Cup winner. He was a joy to function watch and won the hearts of many Liverpool fans.
Alonso’s partner in crime was the Argentinean, Javier Mascherano. He’s another player who is considered as one of the best defensive midfielders in the world. The trio of Alonso, Mascherano and Gerrard formed a brilliant cetre midfield and brought success to Liverpool during the Rafa Benitez era.
Mascherano is not remembered very fondly by the Kop because of the way in which he engineered a move to Barcelona. However, his contribution to the team will never be forgotten.
Can Lucas provide defensive solidity?
Lucas was expected to take over the defensive mid-field position when Xabi Alonso left and was touted by the then manager Rafa Benitez to be a huge success. But a string of below par performances and a host of knee injuries have seen the Brazilian not live up to that potential.
He has forced his way back into Brendan Rodgers’ scheme of things this season. The gaffer is looking to make his Liverpool team defensively stronger this season because the goals at the other end of the pitch have dried up thanks to the departure of Luis Suarez to Barcelona and the injury to his partner in crime last season, Daniel Sturridge.
Brendan has finally realized that it should be Lucas and not Steven Gerrard playing just ahead of the Liverpool defence in the defensive midfield position. Lucas’ return to the side has coincided with Liverpool keeping two clean sheets in their last three games.
Brendan is looking for defensive solidity and Lucas could be the man who holds the key to this. Firstly he is a defensive midfielder by trade has better positional sense than the skipper, Gerrard in the CDM position. Because his positional sense is better, he could end up giving better protection to the back four than any other mid-fielder in the current Liverpool squad.
He has repaid the faith that Brendan has shown in him with three amazing performances in the last three games. He has broken up play efficiently and has been a shield for the Liverpool defence. He was outstanding in Liverpool’s 3-1 win over Leicester. 45 out of the 57 passes he made were successful.
He also won a remarkable 10 out of 12 tackles attempted and 5 out of 9 aerial duels along with 4 interceptions and 8 clearance. He made 13 defensive actions, which included 61.5% clearances, 30.8% interceptions and 7.7% blocks. He was also the stand out performer in Liverpool’s dull 0-0 draw against Sunderland.
These stats clearly show that Liverpool have missed a proper defensive midfielder in front of their defence. The Liverpool defence is also slowly starting to look more assured with Lucas sitting in front of them. This is the perfect opportunity for Lucas to finally establish himself as a regular in the Liverpool team.
Is Lucas the long-term solution?
Although, Lucas’ defensive stats are pretty impressive he is definitely not the long term solution to Liverpool’s defensive midfield problems. His affinity towards committing needless fouls in dangerous positions and collecting unnecessary bookings are well documented. Also, his passing range is very limited. Long range diagonal balls are not something you would associate with Lucas’ game.
Sometimes it is very important for your defensive midfielder to have a good range of passing ability to turn defence into attack quickly for his team. Sadly, Lucas does not offer this. In modern football, when compared to the likes of Matic and Alonso, one needs to occasionally move forward to support the attackers at every opportunity they get. Lucas neither has the attacking nous nor the engine to go forward and support the attackers and to track back and defend when they lose the ball.
But having said that, it is obvious from the recent displays that Lucas is the best player suited to that defensive midfield position in the current Liverpool squad. You can’t lose a game if you don’t concede. And this is what Brendan is trying to implement by bringing Lucas back into the team. It doesn’t look pretty, but it is what Liverpool need at the moment.
