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Recent underrated Liverpool players – Day 2

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Lucas has really turned fan opinions of him around in the past 5 years

Lucas has really turned fan opinions of him around in the past 5 years

Lucas Leiva – Whereas yesterday’s choice – Sami Hyypia – is already a Liverpool legend, Lucas Leiva is still on the cusp of being a player simply remembered fondly by some or being hailed as a great by others.

Ever since he first signed for Liverpool, Lucas has split opinions. As with Xabi Alonso before him, Lucas was considered a threat to Steven Gerrard’s position within the team, but as the years have gone on it’s become clear that Lucas was never a threat to Gerrard; like many before him and since, he was merely brought in to compliment the captain and, if anything, to free him up to do what he did best.

It took Lucas a couple of years to really get going but once he did he was – rightly – considered one of the best defensive midfielders in the Premier League, until injury struck and he missed the best part of 18 months.

At that time, it was a shame, as he was becoming the central figure in Liverpool’s midfield. And in that period of time he could’ve clocked up another 60-70 appearances and, while it isn’t necessarily a suggestion that he could have single-handedly won the Reds any trophies, his presence certainly would’ve seen less goals conceded.

Imagine having had a fully fit, in form Lucas available in some of those final 10 matches last season? It’s unlikely we’d have conceded so many goals in the run in. Sadly, many only realised that we’d missed him once he returned to the team and had a good run of games after Christmas.

However, Lucas’ value and ability have only been further highlighted in recent games where he wasn’t available and it became clear that no player at the club was fit to take his place (10 successful tackles against Newcastle alone, compared to 8 for the whole team against Aston Villa).

There is still plenty of time for Lucas to cement his status with fans, he is still only 28 and a player in his position can go on for many years still.

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I'm a 32 year old Liverpool fan, living in the heart of the City Centre. I've supported the club since the day I was born and have been writing articles for L4L for over 3 years, writing close over 350 articles in that time. My favorite player of the past generation is Sami Hyypia.

I am the current editor for L4L, with my day job being in R&D for the NHS.

1 comment

  • Roberto says:

    Would like to comment about liverpool fc in general. Especially, B.R. And his tactics.
    First of all the transfers,you spend 20mil on balotelli flop,you spend 20mil on markovic flop,you spend 6mil on lambert flop, you spend 25mil on lovren flop, you spend 25mil on lallana (injury prone) you sell a world class player and you dont replace him with another.
    then comes the tactics b.r. Wants his game played but seems like he does not study the opponents game,like when we recently played m.u. Fellaini and mata were all the match in between sakho and moreno,and sterling and can,must be blind to not see that. Another match,you go to the emirates and play with the same system of 3-5-2 when arsenal attack with 5-6 players, against villa all the same,b.r tries to play his style but villa were all over us, today vs hull the same old story, no one can make a difference coming off the bench,cannot expect always same 2-3players to get a goal,coutinho-sterling-or hendo, where is the prime striker. We haven’t got that guy, so who is it to blame?? That’s what we should ask b.r of!!!!

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