According to Adam Lallana it is going to be nigh on impossible to uproot Philippe Coutinho as the club’s resident free-kick taker.
Liverpool were trailing by a goal to Arsenal when just before the break Coutinho found the top right corner of Petr Cech’s goal with a wonder of a free-kick. The swerve that he got on the ball was reminiscent to what David Beckham used to produce on a regular basis for Manchester United.
While I don’t think anyone is going to be comparing Coutinho to Beckham there was undeniable class in the strike produced by Liverpool’s number 10.
Speaking to Liverpoolfc.com, Adam Lallana said, “Phil again came up trumps with the free-kick.”
“We were working on them a couple of days ago – there’s just no chance anyone is getting anywhere near a free-kick.
“But we all want him to have them because he can produce that, and I think that’s the best I’ve ever seen him score. It was further out than usual and it was right in the top corner, the ’keeper had no chance.”
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As humble as Lallana may be I’m sure he’ll allow himself some inner joy at the goal that he scored. Gini Wijnaldum found himself in the box before turning cutely and chipping the ball into Lallana who finished well past Petr Cech.
The Englishman said, “It was a bit of a slow start for myself – a little bit slow and sluggish but I felt like I got into the game. The team felt like we came into the game.
“A great bit of magic from Phil gave us that belief and confidence going into half-time. That was massive for us and we came out in the second half like we were possessed, it was brilliant.
“It was great to be involved in and we just need to show that for longer periods of time, over 90 minutes.
“There were three debutants and I thought they were all brilliant, it was a great game for them to be involved in.”
When Sadio Mané excellently added the fourth goal for Liverpool, the players erupted into passionate celebrations with the former-Southampton forward finding himself atop Jürgen Klopp’s back. I know, I’d also love a piggy-back from Klopp.
However, after the game Klopp admitted that perhaps the celebrations were somewhat premature given how the game ended and Lallana agreed.
He said: “At 4-1 we maybe got a bit complacent, a bit over the top. We were soon back down to earth when it was 4-3.
“I was on the bench in the last 10 minutes and it was unbearable to watch at times. But we have a benchmark now and we can assess it and look at things we need to improve on.
“The manager will do that, for sure. He won’t be entirely happy with the performance – there’ll definitely be things we need to work on. We’ve got a full week’s training now to prepare for Burnley.”
The amount of time between each fixture will be something that will come as a relief for players like Lallana who will be allowed extra time to recuperate and prepare for the next high-intensity game.