How Lallana established himself as a key man for Liverpool
When Adam Lallana joined the exodus from Southampton to Liverpool for a fee of £25m in the summer of 2014, there was widespread scepticism. It was one thing to be a skilful creator for a mid-ranking side when the pressure wasn’t there to perform absolutely in every game, quite another to do so at a club like Liverpool. Was he quick enough, either of foot or mind?
When Jurgen Klopp replaced Brendan Rodgers a little over a year later, there were further doubts. Klopp required constant energy and furious pressing at all times. Was Lallana, a neat technical player who seemed to fit the Rodgers philosophy of pretty passing and possession football, really going to be able to cope with the more physical demands of gegenpressing?
But it turned out the doubters had Lallana wrong. He may look like a mild-mannered and conscientious dental student, but his energy has been prodigious. Even in a hard-running Liverpool side, he has been at the top of the charts for distance covered. The decision this season to move him back into midfield, to operate as a flanking midfielder alongside Georgino Wijnaldum and in front of Jordan Henderson - or, on Saturday, Emre Can - has been a conspicuous success. Whatever the other concerns about Liverpool this season, whatever the worries about the depth of the squad or the lack of variety of play, one thing has been clearly learned, as that is that Lallana can be hugely effective not only as an attacking midfielder, a three-quarter floating between the lines, but as a deeper-lying player, not quite a box-to-box midfielder but not far off.
It’s perhaps still natural to think of Lallana as primarily an attacking player, and in that regard he has excelled this season. 23 starts have brought seven goals and seven assists: only five players in the Premier League have set up more goals than him while, depending exactly how you categorise players, only Dele Alli and Gylfi Sigurdsson among midfielders have scored more. In itself, that shows his development under Klopp. Only once before has he scored more than seven in the Premier League and, barring injury, he will surely soon surpass the nine he scored in the 2013/14 season for Southampton. That campaign, notably, he registered only five assists: this is already his joint most effective season for goals and assists combined.
In metrics such as pass accuracy, aerials duels won and shots per game, he has remained fairly constant throughout his Premier League career. He is dribbling a little less than he did in that final season at Southampton, but that’s exactly as you’d expect in a better team when he less often finds himself isolated in forward areas.
But perhaps what’s most striking is another change that hasn’t happened. The assumption would be that under Klopp, tackles and interceptions per game would go up, given the level of pressing he demands. In Lallana’s case it hasn’t. He wins the ball back, whether through tackles or interceptions, roughly 2.5 times per game, as he has in almost every Premier League season he’s played.
The one dip was his first season at Liverpool, under Rodgers, but that wasn’t a huge drop off. And there is one season in which he notably outperformed that 2.5 expectation: his first in the top flight, with Southampton in 2012/13, when he made 2.4 tackles and 2.2 interceptions per game.
Perhaps that’s indicative of nothing more than the fact that Lallana was often isolated that season - under Nigel Adkins and then Mauricio Pochettino - and so had to do more basic running at the front end of the team himself, or perhaps it’s a reminder that appearances can be deceptive. Maybe it’s the case that Liverpool knew exactly what they were getting when they signed Lallana, that, partly crafted by Pochettino, he was already a good presser of the ball, and his aggression was disguised by a meek exterior.
Either way, he has been one of the undoubted successes of a generally mixed season for Liverpool.
