Gini WijnalTON

So our number five and arguably our best player of the season thus far is one game away from making his 100th Liverpool appearance. It may very well be in tonight's League Cup tie against Chelsea - if not then I'd back it to be this weekend against Chelsea. Whenever he does mark the achievement he will become the 208th player to do so.

There were a few eyebrows raised when we spent over 20 million on Gini and his less than eye catching style has had people continue to question what he actually brings to the team but his performances this year have answered those questions. He has been outstanding this year and to be fair, he's been more than solid throughout his Liverpool career. He does a lot of unnoticed work that maybe people don't appreciate but it's fairly obvious that the manager does.

He was brought to the club in Jürgen's first full year at the club. And only Mane cost more in those opening 18 months of Jürgen's reign. He's also been in the top three appearance makers in the two season's that he's been here (second in 16/17 - behind Origi of all people! and third last season behind Bobby and Mo) so he clearly has the trust of the manager.

He's banged in nine goals for the club thus far as well, including goals against City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs as well as that goal against Roma in the semi final of the European Cup last season - his first away goal for the club. Though he's never scored against the same opponent twice for us, maybe that will change either tonight or Saturday by netting another against Chelsea.

Fantastic achievement for a very underrated player.

Well done Gini!

I posted earlier I expected far more from him because he was capable of far more than we had seen. He has been outstanding this season and I think maybe Klopp has to got into his head and now he believes he is capable of being a top player.

Much like Milner with the addition of Keita/Fabinho he seem to raise up his game early on in the season, surprises me how well he plays in #6 when asked and because of that give us more flexibility in selection as Klopp is keen on slowly getting Fabinho into the squad and Henderson who coming off World Cup summer and history of fitness issue good for the team not having rely on him as much. I believe his best position is attacking role of the mid-field trio being the link to the attacking three and hoping this year he has a repeat of 16/17 where he chipped in with some goals and assists. 

Earlier on last season, I had noticed that he had been performing superbly - however undermined by the brilliance of our front-three, he deserved MOTM on merit for some of his performances.

Not sure what happened after that, everything's a blur now. I have my blinkers on. But he's been eye-catching again of late, and long may it continue.

It's a testament to the lad that he's keeping out £90m+ worth of stock (Fabinho, Keita). It just shows the class in the squad has turned it up a notch for some of the players, Gini and Milner the obvious candidates.

I can't see them going anywhere, any time soon.