Liverpool goalkeeping coach John Achterberg has raved over the performances of summer signing Adrian this season.
The Spaniard arrived late in the transfer window on a free after his contract expired with the Reds’ Premier League rivals West Ham United. Achterberg has been very impressed by him.
“He had to come in from West Ham and he had to settle quickly,” he told the Liverpool Echo. “Everything he has done so far has been really good, we have not been able to complain much at all.
“It’s a different style of play, with West Ham he had to kick the ball long 90 per cent of the time, but we ask him to be calm on the ball and play out from the back. To be fair, he has picked it up really quickly. He has adapted fast, even though he had a lot of experience playing in the Premier League.”
OPINION
Adrian has been a huge success for Liverpool, there’s no doubt about that. He was brought in late in the summer for nothing to serve a very specific role as Alisson’s deputy. Simon Mignolet left to return to Belgium and it left Jurgen Klopp scrabbling around to replace him. However, the signing of Adrian couldn’t really have gone any better for the European champions. Obviously in an ideal world he wouldn’t have had to play this much so soon, but the 32-year-old has excelled in place of the injured Brazilian. Achterberg’s comments on Liverpool’s style of playing as opposed to West Ham’s are very interesting. Certainly he is being asked to play the ball on the floor a lot more at Anfield, there’s no doubt about that. However, his passing statistics for the Reds compared to his last season as a starter are very interesting indeed. As per WhoScored.com, the Spaniard actually averaged more passes per game (27.4) with West Ham than he has done with Liverpool (25.9). However, his pass accuracy has skyrocketed with the Reds from 42.5% to 74.4%. Plus, he averaged 9.2 long balls a game with the Irons compared to 5.1 with Klopp’s men. So there is certainly truth in what Achterberg says.
