Lucas Pezzini Leiva. The Brazilian was brought from Grêmio in July 2007 for £5m. Rafa Benitez has always rated him highly, protecting him a few times from the media.
Benitez: “I will support Lucas 100%, always.”
However Lucas wasn’t actually a defensive midfielder to start with, when he came to Anfield he started further up the field. It was only till Rafa’s late ‘era’ he saw Lucas had better qualities as a DM. I can’t remember us having a proper defensive midfielder since Mascherano, someone who could deal with the pace and the intensity of the Premier League game… But let’s not get into that.
Now, I did rate Lucas. However ever since his injury against Chelsea in the Carling Cup, he’s never been the same. He lacks intensity, pace and has no real threat if he ever does go forward. Positioning is so key to be a DM, and last season I felt his positioning wasn’t at all great. With some of the goals being conceded because of this. Discipline is also key, and Lucas does struggle with that at times. I’ve seen it too many times Lucas getting ripped to shreds and to be honest, I’ve had enough.
Last season Liverpool’s form suddenly improved after Lucas came back to the side. Although I do disagree with many, maybe even most, people saying this was because of Lucas. It was because we didn’t even use a defensive midfielder in the first place. To play in Rodgers’ system without a DM is fairly suicidal, and we could clearly see that. It was the fact we added in a DM which improved our form, not Lucas. Now don’t get me wrong, Lucas put in an… Okay job. All these stats about Lucas’ tackling, passing etc. is not surprising. In fact, it’s expected. A player in his position is supposed to top these stats comparing to other team mates.
In my eyes he clearly struggled to maintain a high intensity for 90 minutes, and in order to become a successful DM you need this. One thing I will defend about Lucas, is that he has actually improved on the careless tackles. But again, he still does it too often and you can see some of the set pieces we’ve conceded was because of pure stupidity by him.
Now this isn’t some viscous attack on Lucas, this is just my opinion and I feel he has a number of limitations and if we want to get into the Champions League or even do better, we need to get someone in.
Would I sell him without getting a replacement? No. I don’t see Emre Can as a defensive midfielder, I see him more of a box-to-box player. We’ve seen in the U21s European Championships he’s a real threat when going forward. We shouldn’t waste that, plus when he’s played as the holding DM he didn’t seem too comfortable.
So who could we actually get? The best DM we’ve been linked to is Bender, but I can’t see him coming to Liverpool. With lack of Champions League football, it’s tough to get a top class DM. Two players I would automatically go for would be Morgan Schneiderlin or Willam Carvalho. Unfortunately Kondogbia has gone to Inter so he’s not an option. But again, it’s tough to get those two players without Champions League. Carvalho has been unreal in the U21 European Tournament, and getting him would be massive. Again, I can’t see us getting a player like this but a two man midfield with him and Can would see the team increase in performance levels massively.
So who could we get realistically then. Wanyama would have been fairly realistic however with Morgan likely to leave this summer, there are doubts that Southampton would let go of another important player – especially to Liverpool (Making SOUTHAMPTONPOOL even stronger). Kranevitter would be a good option to look at, he’s been heavily linked with Atletico Madrid and would only cost £6m. For some odd reason there’s some sort of repelling force between a DM and Rodgers, and if this continues it could be fatal for the club.
In conclusion, we need a better DM however an ‘okay’ DM is better than no DM at all – as proved by Lucas Leiva.
Max
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