Jurgen Klopp hailed his Liverpool centre-back pairing for the way they handled Adama Traore. He believes the Wolves man is virtually ‘undefendable’ at times.
Liverpool came away from Molineux with a 1-0 win. That’s back-to-back wins and back-to-back clean-sheets.
Things suddenly look a bit better, then. A lot of that’s down to Liverpool finally having a settled centre-back duo.
They have Fabinho protecting them, of course, but Nat Phillips and Ozan Kabak have looked good over the past week. They’ve taken on two tough challenges and come away with clean-sheets.
They’ve certainly impressed Klopp, who pointed out the difficulty in handling someone like Adama Traore.
“They played now the second game in a row together and did really well,” he said, per Liverpoolfc.com.
“You can imagine the Leipzig game was difficult, but tonight was difficult for completely different reasons because the speed of Traore is actually undefendable in moments.”.
What RTK has to say
Traore isn’t exactly having a good season but he certainly presented a test. And the more tests Phillips and Kabak face, the better they’ll become.
They passed this one and things feel very positive. Traore did have some decent runs and perhaps could have caused damage with a better final ball, but on the whole, Liverpool kept him quiet.
The centre-back pairing are vital to the team right now. And not just for the obvious of having decent centre-backs.
Trust in them means Fabinho can play in midfield. The Brazilian’s impact there has been immediate, boosting the midfield and making the defence’s job a whole lot easier.
And if Kabak and Phillips keep performing, perhaps the returning Jordan Henderson can play in midfield, too. Suddenly, Liverpool look very strong.
That plan relies on the inexperienced centre-backs delivering, though. Fortunately, they’re currently showing they can.
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