Lucas Leiva is one play who continues to receive mixed reviews from Liverpool fans. Today I would like to talk to the Liverpool fans who still think that Lucas is not worthy of being in the Liverpool side and should either be on the bench or sold by the club.
It is true that when Lucas arrived from Brazil in 2007 he struggled to break into the Liverpool side. When he was given opportunities to play, he did not cover himself in glory at all. But the Brazilian has steadily progressed for the Reds since 2007 and has become one of the best defensive midfielders in the Premier League today.
If you just want to see how vital Lucas is, just look at how the Liverpool midfield struggled without him when he was injured last season. This term so far you can see that he is not yet at his flying best as he has taken some time to recover from his injury but if you watched Lucas against West Brom on the weekend, you can see that he is almost back to his best.
Against West Brom, Luis Suarez was the man of the match due to his hat-trick but Lucas was not too far off from receiving that accolade. He controlled the midfield well and was always available to receive the first pass from the defenders when they had won possession. We will not even talk about the penalty he apparently gave away as that was not even a spot kick!
The position Lucas plays in is not a glamorous one; he is not there to make raking cross field passes or bursting runs into the oppositions half, but his job is just to tidy things up in midfield, make critical passes and interceptions and provide protection for the back line. Some say this is an easy position to play in but I beg to differ, you need a good footballing brain to play ther. We saw Brendan Rodgers trying to play Joe Allen in the ‘Lucas role’ last season when the Brazilian was injured and Allen failed to deliver there.
So to hear some fans say that Lucas is the current ‘weak spot’ in the Liverpool side baffles me. With Lucas in the side, he is able to give Gerrard and Henderson (against West Brom) freedom to move forward whilst he hangs back and puts in tackles (seven tackles against West Brom- more than any other player on the field) and he also had a 92% passing accuracy from his 69 passes.
There is no doubt that we are a better side with Lucas in it than without him. His presence gives the players around him the assurance that they can bomb forward knowing that Lucas will be holding back to provide protection for them. The longer the Gerrard and Lucas partnership plays together the more stable you will see our central midfield becoming.
What a load of contrived boll*cks! Has the bloke ever been to Anfield? Yes Lucas did get a mixed respose in his early days, and yes a few divs did ‘cheer’ hs substitution once, but this guy has been a hero for years now. He won the Golden Samba for God’s sake! All at Anfield know what a ‘top top’ player he is and expected him to take time to return to his best. Saturday witnessed his best display since reurning from serious injury. The problem with simplitic bloggers like this bloke is that he thinks trawling various forums is a substitute for going to the match and gives him an insight into what really goes on. Probably wears a jester hat and shouts “Who are ya?” at his TV screen – the wool.
Jesus, saw this article thought has someone dragged this up from 2003? It’s why we f**** love him. I have never in the last 3 years heard one person who knows anything about football or LFC give Lucas a hard time, he is our Brazilian rock in midfield so f**k knows what strange twitter trolls and anti lucas facebook groups you go on. I will look forward to singing his song next sat at the emirates.
I think it is stupid how T.V. shows like MoTD always do a segment on the attackers for clubs like Liverpool, every segment this year has been on Sturridge/Suarez, and this really masks (for those who do not watch the games live) how important a player Lucas is to Liverpool. I would rank him among the top 5 defensive centre midfielders in the world, maybe even number 1. He rarely misplaces a pass as the %’s show, however, when people see those amazing %’s they simply put it down to simple passes to the defenders of 5-10 yards. Videos like this show that a great deal of his passes are really accurate and are more in the range of 15-40 yards. Also his defensive workrate is top notch, which really flatters Liverpools defence. Also I would love to see the tackles per game/tackle completed %’s for him
Yes Lucas played very well on saturday. Great interceptions and prevented WBA a couple of times in the box when things could have gotten really dangerous. Also made good, distinct passes that allowed us to change from defending to attacking quickly. By far his best game this season.
I dont think people think hes a bad player, or a weak link at all.
Certainly not when he performs as he did on saturday.
The reason that he has come under scrutiny, again, is perhaps that some may feel that for LFC to be contenders for title and CL achivements the team need someone even stronger in that role. Someone who has more in his arsenal. Someone with a good shot, with quicker feet, more pace.
In the %times podcast recently, one could hear Ian St.John and Alan Kennedy discussing Liverpools current midfield players, and commented that we dont have a “powerhouse” midfield at the moment. They went as far as saying that 2 new midfield players should be bought in january.
I dont think they consider leavin Stevie G out of the team, so this is indirectly a critique of Lucas. So clearly it is not only Liverpool “fans” who think we’re lacking something in todays team.