Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti says he told Luka Modric to press Liverpool’s Fabinho during last night’s game.
Fabinho has been off his game for much of the season. This has led to a once immovable object now being seen as a weak-link in the midfield.
As per Ancelotti’s post-match comments on the 29-year-old though, it seems Madrid struggled to cope with Fabinho last night. The Brazil international’s improvement forced the manager into a bit of a re-shuffle in midfield.
“We had problems down our left in the first half. I told [Luka Modric] to put more pressure on Fabinho,” Ancelotti explained. “In the second half we put Valverde there. Nacho always delivers. He has a footballing intelligence like few others”.
Positives amongst the pain
Now that the pain of a heavy defeat is starting to ease, it becomes easier to clearly analyse the game.
When all is said and done, Liverpool conceded five poor goals. Aside from Vinicius Junior’s first of the night, every one of Madrid’s strikes were completely avoidable.
It’s clear that each goal sapped a little more confidence from every player in red.
This led to a diabolical second-half, with Madrid playing it around to shouts of ‘Ole’ from their fans in the Anfield Road end.
Prior to that though, Liverpool were genuinely good. This isn’t the best version of Ancelotti’s side, but the Reds still very much went toe-to-toe with them for 45 minutes.
Fabinho was a big reason for that. A lot is always said about Modric and many-a game he plays in seems to have its story re-written to fit the narrative that the Croat dominated the game.
But that wasn’t the case here. How many times did we see Fabinho burst past him in the opening half hour? That isn’t something we’ve seen often enough from the Brazilian this season, but he did it more than once against Modric.
Indeed for a time it looked like the Fabinho of old. Yes, that changed second-half, but he was left completely exposed. So, despite the score-line and the dull pain of a humbling in our own backyard, there were some positives to take here. We may be clutching at straws, but we think Fab’s improvement was certainly one of them.