While Mohamed Salah has taken the plaudits, and the PFA Players’ Player of the Year
award, Roberto Firmino has also been instrumental in Liverpool’s exciting style of football
this season.
Indeed, it’s arguable that no club in world football boasts a front three of such all-round
ability, as Firmino, Salah, and Sadio Mane have shown with their breath-taking combination
play, with each other, and as part of Liverpool’s overall stylistic approach.
This front three have accounted for 56 of Liverpool’s 80 league goals this season,
or 70%, and have also weighed in with 23 assists between them.Roberto Firmino was one of the
signings by Liverpool’s transfer committee, brought in from Hoffenheim in the summer of
2015.
An article in October of that year was scathing: “The committee have yet to explain how they
came up with the figure of £29million to sign Brazilian forward Roberto Firmino from
Hoffenheim, who finished eighth in the Bundesliga last season.”
The new breed of analysts, who sit in “air-conditioned offices…burying their heads in the stats”
clearly saw something in Firmino, though.
Rodgers left the club in October 2015 after a run games that saw them take a 1-0 lead
then draw 1-1, the final of which was the Merseyside derby.
Jurgen Klopp replaced Rodgers shortly afterwards and now, as the 2017/18 season draws to its
close, Liverpool are one game away from winning the Champions League.
Liverpool’s 4-3-3 suits Firmino very well, as he dovetails with the inside runs of Mane
and Salah.
Dropping deep to collect the ball, creating chances for other players with his movement
and passing, Firmino plays as a sort of false nine, the tactical term popularised by the
use of a player whose creative onus and deeper playmaking outweighs their scoring contribution,
despite nominally being a team’s centre forward.
Firmino’s dropping in to space means that he regularly looks, positionally at least,
like a number 10, with Salah and Mane advanced ahead of him.
He is comfortable dropping vertically between the defensive and midfield lines, but he also
moves wide, with the wide players cutting inside ahead of him.
Both wide men also drop back, meaning that the whole forward line can begin an attacking
phase close to the midfield – in this instance, Firmino is often the pivot that then releases
the quicker Mane or Salah forwards into space.
He is superb at taking the ball, turning, and finding the pass, and this speed of thought
and execution, feeding the equally rapid Mane and Salah, is part of what gives Liverpool
their ability to transition from defence to attack so quickly.
Firmino also works extremely hard to assist in Liverpool’s pressing game.
The Reds’ front three press in a diamond as often as possible, where Firmino leads
the press as the tip of the spear, while Mane and Salah drop off somewhat to cover passing
angle.
Firmino will also press wider, giving Liverpool more of a 4-4-2 look, as one of the wide players
drops in; either way, he is very effective as cutting down passing options and winning
the ball back.
Firmino is an all-round player – he can score, create, drop off to make the pass before
the assist, and win the ball across the pitch by intercepting or tackling.
This is manifest in his metrics, the stats that the Liverpool transfer committee saw
and liked, irrespective of how that transfer was viewed by some in the press at the time.
In his last two seasons at Hoffenheim, Firmino’s xG was 0.27 goals per 90 in 2013/14 and 0.3
goals per 90 in 2014/15 [STATS FROM OPTA].
Firmino was clearly, even then, a striker who looked capable of delivering a strong
return of goals.
But his all-round game was equally impressive, and has continued to be.
Looking at league performance from his last two seasons at Hoffenheim, and his time at
Liverpool, Firmino shows a remarkable level of consistency.
His defensive output is extremely high for a striker, as well.
Of players appearing as a striker in more than five games this season, only Jordan Ayew
has made more tackles per 90 and only Shane Long has made more interceptions per 90; Ayew
and Long have nine Premier League goals between them, compared to Firmino’s 15.
Jurgen Klopp has fashioned a side that works hard, presses brilliantly, and feeds a front
three capable of enormous skill and no little goal scoring threat.
Firmino is, in some ways, the archetypal Liverpool player in the current set-up.
Yes, he scores goals and makes them for others, but it’s his intelligence, tactical intelligence,
hard work, and defensive contribution from the front, that really marks him out.
And you don’t need a spreadsheet to tell you that.