Fabinho started in Liverpool’s 1-0 defeat at Atletico Madrid on Tuesday. It was his first ‘big game’ start since November at it’s clear he’s playing catch up.
Liverpool struggled in Madrid after conceding an early goal. Their opponents were happy to shut up shop, dropping back into their own half and killing the game.
That earned them their 1-0 win but it also showed the problem with Liverpool’s team on the day.
Jurgen Klopp opted to use Fabinho in midfield, a sign that he wanted things to be a little tighter than usual. Unfortunately, that early goal utterly negated that plan.
And now that Liverpool had to chase the game, they had the wrong team. Fabinho was the reason for that.
This was far and away the Brazilian’s biggest start since his injury in November. He’d had some big ones before that, of course, and put in some great performances.
But Liverpool kicked up a gear after his injury. They started keeping clean sheets at a much, much better rate and put in arguably their best game of the season away at Leicester City.
And Fabinho’s inclusion here showed that he’s still catching up with that. It was his error that led to the Atletico goal as he didn’t react fast enough from the corner.
Defensively, Fabinho wasn’t up to scratch. According to stats from Whoscored, Fabinho only won 60% of his tackles. He was dribbled past twice, too, while he only won three out of ten ariel duels. Those aren’t the statistics of Fabinho at his best and we know how good the £39m man can be.
The real issue, though, was that Liverpool lacked something in midfield without Jordan Henderson in the holding role and a more advanced midfielder in front of him.
Liverpool just didn’t look the same and while that was partly down to Atletico and their tactics, Fabinho was the difference in the team.
There’s little doubt that he’ll get back to his best eventually but we need to hope it’s soon.
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