How Fabinho has made himself a regular first-team starter

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Although Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp doesn’t like to rotate his starting eleven too much, there is still enough depth in the squad to keep the first-teamers on their toes.

However, every top team has a few stars who, when fit, are considered guaranteed starters.

At Liverpool, you could include players like Alisson, Virgil van Dijk, Andy Robertson, Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mané in such a class. Unless injured, none of those players will be left out of Klopp’s lineup for any important game. Well, now you can add Fabinho’s name to that list.

To be fair, Fabinho probably became one of the first names on Klopp’s teamsheet in the second half of last season, within six months of his debut for the club. With his signing announced the night after Liverpool’s Champions League final defeat to Real Madrid in Kyiv, Fabinho’s arrival went largely under the radar for many of us.

Fans who watched the Brazilian during his days with AS Monaco knew he had the potential to be a top player. However, his improvement since joining The Reds has been a sight to behold.

Initially, like Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain after his arrival from Arsenal, Fabinho had to make his way through a difficult bedding-in period. There, all the hard work was done behind the scenes, away from public scrutiny. How well it worked out.

Within months of his first appearance, Fabinho was showing us just what he was made of and what we had been missing. Liverpool had been without a top-level defensive midfielder for many years.

Played out of his natural box-to-box position, Jordan Henderson held the fort for a few seasons. But Fabinho’s arrival and subsequent development mean the Liverpool captain can now influence games from his preferred role further up the pitch.

Fabinho has shown he can tackle as hard as anyone. Yet, he can do it with timing and technique that must seem alien to many other midfielders.

While not blessed with quite as impressive a passing range as Xabi Alonso, Fabinho can still influence the pace of the game like his Spanish predecessor. Importantly, he’s not afraid to push forward with the ball. His passing is accurate enough to break the lines at pace, feeding either the other midfielders ahead of him or any of the front three.

It’s no mean feat that Fabinho has made himself one of Liverpool’s key players little over a year after signing for the club. If Jurgen Klopp’s Reds are to experience any more success in the near future, he is sure to play a hugely important role.