Even though it is still early stages of the campaign, Liverpool entered into the top four of the Premier League after a 5-1 thrashing of Hull City on Saturday. The result and the subsequent league position is a major confidence boost for the club now and several players like Philippe Coutinho, Adam Lallana, Sadio Mane are the key to this progress. Of these games, Lallana could take much of the credit for being one of the most improved and most influential players on the pitch especially for the last couple of weeks.
Lallana was at this imperious best against Hull, and quite surprisingly, he has excelled very well in the rest of the fixtures. A 100% shot accuracy from six appearances remains as one of his best statistics and also responsible for three league goals and three assists already. Lallana is well on course to improving his statistics of seven goals from last season. Playing alongside Jordan Henderson and Georginio Wijnaldum has enabled him to go forward without any worries about the defence. This seems to have unlocked a never before seen attacking potential within the player.
Liverpool have not really had a proper goal scoring midfielder for quite a while since the days of Steven Gerrard at his peak. Lallana still has a long way to go before reaching those levels, but he has sure shown a lot of promise.
The game against Hull City showed just the kind of devastating impact Lallana can have as a right-sided attacking midfielder. Of course, he created only two chances in the 60 odd minutes he spent on the pitch, but a passing accuracy of 94% for a player who spends much of his time in the final third of the pitch speaks volumes about his quality. At this moment, Lallana seemed to do no wrong and his teammates have been quick to recognise this fact.
In terms of passes, Lallana has always preferred short passes and layoffs. This aspect does not seem to have changed, as his average pass length is 15 m compared to Philippe Coutinho who passes are of 16 m in length on an average. As a midfield general, Lallana would be expected to bring more through balls into his play rather than playing short passes.
One of the positive attributes of Lallana has always been his work rate. His goal against Hull City came from inside the box, but he also attempted two shots from just outside the box. Well, that surely isn’t an issue as the campaign has just started and it is fair to say that the former Southampton attacker is destined for more.
The arrival of Sadio Mane, earlier this summer, questioned the future of Lallan and many believed that he would be nothing more than a deputy for the Senegalese, but the gaffer had other ideas and also thanks to Lallana’s versatility; the attacking midfielder has adapted a new life at Anfield.
