BBC Sport pundit Garth Crooks has selected Liverpool forward Roberto Firmino in his Premier League Team of the Week.
The Brazil international scored the pivotal second goal as the Reds claimed a hard-fought 2-1 victory over Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Crooks enjoyed Firmino’s display.
“I think VAR is going to be the death of us all in the end,” he wrote on the BBC Sport website. “Nevertheless, Liverpool used the technology to their benefit and Roberto Firmino in particular.
“While Chelsea were suffering from VAR’s discovery that Mason Mount’s big toe was offside the Brazil international took complete advantage of the situation and put the game beyond the Blues. This was not a classic Liverpool performance but even VAR can’t stop a team from winning ugly.”
OPINION
Once again Crooks has used a section where he should be explaining why he put a player in his Team of the Week to simply talk about something else. Yes, VAR is a contentious issue and it had some hairy moments this weekend but, really, why was Firmino selected? We have no idea. Crooks doesn’t tell us anything about why he was impressed by the former Hoffenheim man’s performance or why he was selected ahead of some of the division’s other top performers. It’s incredibly frustrating to have no sense of why the Brazilian was picked by Crooks. All we learn here is that the former Tottenham Hotspur man doesn’t like VAR. In fact, he believes it’s going to be the ‘death of us all’. Look, you don’t go to Crooks for top class analysis, but you expect a bit of an insight into why someone has been selected in his Team of the Week, at least.
