Lucas must not leave Liverpool

Plenty of things have happened this season to defy the expectations of Liverpool fans. Our terrible run of results from September to November. Daniel Sturridge’s injury three games in that ruled him out for 5 months. Gerrard unintentionally showing everyone that defensive midfield isn’t actually his best position in his old age. Our struggle to score goals in Sturridge’s absence.

Now it seems that something knew has popped up that no one could have possibly seen coming last summer. Lucas Leiva has made a comeback.

In the summer, there were rumours flying about that with Gerrard cementing his in place at the base of the midfield, Brendan Rodgers felt that Lucas was no longer needed and was willing to sell him. There were often murmurs that Rafa Benitez’s Napoli were lurking in the shadows, seriously considering taking the Brazilian off our hands.

For some reason or another that didn’t happen and now, 5 months later, Lucas is showing everyone that he is still needed. Since Rodgers announced to his players that he was ‘resetting’ the season before the Ludogorets game in November, we have only lost once in our last 13 games in all competitions. Lucas started 12 of those games.

Guess which one he didn’t? That’s right, it was the 3-0 loss to United. Now, I’m not saying that Lucas is the saviour who would have won the game for us, but it was well documented that the result could have gone either way that day. When you consider that United’s first goal came from a counter attack that had Rooney unmarked on the edge of the penalty area, you’d think that Lucas’ excellent sense of positioning would have had him stay in that area, ready to intercept the ball before it gets to Rooney.

The second goal was offside and the third was bad defending from a defence that had been under pressure for most of the game. Either way, my point is that considering our recent record with Lucas in the team – with Gerrard further up the pitch, not partnering him in defensive midfield – you have to wonder if things might have been different.

There are other factors that explain our upturn in form as well: the change in formation to 3-4-3, putting Sterling up front rather than persisting with the immobile Balotelli or Lambert, plus the improving form of Lallana, Markovic, Can and Coutinho. But it’s difficult to deny that deploying Lucas at the base of midfield rather than Gerrard has improved the side. While neither has a lot of pace anymore (which is why they should never be allowed to partner each other in holding midfield), Lucas at least has better positional sense than his captain, who has found himself out of position and chasing the ball too often this season.

This allows Gerrard to play further up-field and linking up with the forwards which, hollywood balls aside, we know he’s far better at doing as long as he is used sparingly. It also means Lucas isn’t charged with babysitting him in holding midfield and is instead allowed to get on and do his job.

Of course, it would be much better if Rodgers went out and bought a quality defensive/holding midfielder to upgrade on the position altogether, but it doesn’t look like that will happen until the summer at least. So for the rest of the season, Lucas is definitely an improvement on Gerrard and needs to be deployed there consistently.

This makes persistent rumours that he will still be sold in January incredibly disconcerting. Lucas is one of the main reasons that the team is improving; to have him leave now would be taking a drastic step back.

Right now he is the only one capable of doing a decent job of protecting our defenders. To lose that quality would be to consign Liverpool to mid-table mediocrity. Something every fan fears.