Some on here wrote Lucas off completely after his injury and will never give him the credit he deserves.
Sad really because he's a top DM.
Some of our fans writing off Lucas completely and never giving him the credit he deserves is the perfect summary of his career.
He will always be extremely underappreciated by a good portion of our fan base. It's due to a mixture of his position (not many even understand the true necessity of a tactical DM in certain systems) and his personality (his humility/lack of flashiness). He's a working man's player. He goes in, gets the job done, keeps quiet, and repeats it again the next day the same way. People - especially those who might not be inclined to understand the game in its entirety - can't appreciate how essential he is to our success.
His discipline, tactical mindset, ability to read the game and breakdown opposition attacks before they hit our backline are not only hugely important for our defense, but also for our midfield. He allows someone like Can, Milner, and Hendo to be relieved of a good amount of their defensive duties and instead focus on being creative and launching attacks from the midfield. Whereas without Lucas, maybe we play with Hendo and Milner, then both of them are left worrying about defensive duties and as we saw, our offense had looked pretty flat as a result in our first few games.
Not only would I hand Lucas the captain's band (at least on a vice captain level), but I would hand him a new contract and sign someone who could be backup for his exact position and fill his role in 2-3 years time (i.e. Ruben Neves).
As said above, I think Hendo and Milner are both "yes men" with good work ethics who agreed with everything Brendan had to say and for that reason were rewarded. But I think Lucas represents Klopp's ideals in a sense and also has been a key fixture in our team for longer than Hendo and Milner have been here combined. If Klopp is the normal one of managers, then Lucas is the normal one of players.
Really would like to see him paired with Can again in our midfield and hopefully Klopp continues to reward him for his loyalty and significance to our team.
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