Really great game from him today, he was relentless today and while he fluffed a coupl of passes in the final third, his reading of the game and distribution was awesome.
His reading of the game is probably the best in our squad and his passing is always top notch and very clean. It's in games like these he really shines. He has never disappointed me in a single game against a big team, he has always been amongst the top performers and yesterday was no different.
Our Dr Jekyll / Mr. Hyde. When he is on he is a absolute menace in the MF. When he is off u won’t even know where he is. Need this kind of performance every game from him. If we get it skies the limit with the talent around him
That's the thing with people asking for 'consistency'. In my opinion he does consistently deliver good performances. The thing is that it's impossible for him to deliver this kind of performances because the vast majority of teams don't allow us to play the way City allowed us to play yesterday. If for example we'd play against City, Arsenal and Spurs every week, I'm 100% sure he'd deliver this kind of brilliant performances every single game. You can't however expect him to deliver this kind of performance when what the opposition team does is limit our play, of which he is a very big part in high tempo, transition games.
The other thing is that when we play teams that sit deep, he has actually been our most defensive midfielder and that goes back to pre-season. Those who watched our Asian tour might remember, but that's where Wijnaldum was actually tried as our #6 in the game against Palace I think (could be Leicester). I'm not sure I see him as a longterm option at #6, but he has the intelligence, positional awareness, passing, reading of the game, ... To play there in certain games. He allows Can to play a bit higher and takes up the defensive responsiblities that come with it. He just gets on with it, no matter where he has to play and at the end he always has this huge smile on his face.
These are the sort of games suited to Gini when there is a arm wrestle in midfield.
When we have the bulk of possession he is not so good.
Hard to believe he was an attacking midfielder as he seems to have zero composure in front of goal.
Yes it's strange, he was deadly in front of goal at PSV and Newcastle. He has been playing further back for quite some time now, perhaps just lost a bit of confidence in his attacking ability because he doesn't get into these positions very often anymore? When he has to finish instinctively he looks better, it's when he has time to think he tends to struggle.
Anyway, great player and Klopp obviously loves him to bits. He can put him anywhere on the pitch and he'll deliver, even at LCB in a back three
Ok he didn't look all that good there, I'll give you that, haha.
Can anyone find a stat that shows our PPG when he starts vs our PPG when he doesn't? He reminds me of Makelele -- unspectacular, but incredibly effective.
Not entirely sure, but I think it's at 1.44 PPG when he doesn't play / start in the league. 3 wins, 4 draws, 2 losses. 13 points from 9 games. No idea what it's at with him, but seeing as we've been averaging about 2 PPG since Klopp is here, I'd say it's better to have him start than not.