OPINION
Danny Mills shared his theory on why Liverpool defender Joe Gomez has been sparingly used this season by Jurgen Klopp and needlessly stirred the pot.
The Sky Sports pundit pointed out how Dejan Lovren was preferred to Gomez when Klopp had to pick a player to replace Joel Matip in the clash with Leicester City.
Mills suggested that the Liverpool manager, who he thinks is amazing, must be seeing something in training that sees Klopp prefer Virgil van Dijk, Lovren and Matip ahead of Gomez.
“Well even Lovren was preferred when Matip wasn’t available, so Jurgen Klopp, the amazing manager that he is, why does he have Gomez down as third or fourth centre-back?” said Mills on Football Centre (10:54, Monday October 14th, Sky Sports News).
“He must be seeing something different in training or in U-23s games or behind-closed-doors games, that is making him say I prefer Matip, I even prefer Lovren, then it’s Gomez.
“Then again it’s difficult, as these players (England’s defenders) aren’t developing as out and out defenders.”
If you’re Gomez hearing this verdict, you going to think, you’re not doing enough in training and that you need to do more to impress in behind-closed-doors matches.
While this is a fantastic attitude to have anyway, you do feel Mills is stirring the pot wrongly as Gomez being left out the Reds’ team is likely not a poor reflection on him.
In the 2019/20 season so far, Van Dijk and Joel Matip have been in undroppable form and have established a good understanding that brings out the best in each other.
Both have been formidable in the air, Van Dijk has averaged 5.8 aerial duels per game while Matip has averaged six aerial duels per match, and both have not been wasteful in possession as Matip has a pass completion rate of 81.16% while Van Dijk’s pass completion rate is 87.1%. (Source: WhoScored)
So Gomez could be wowing in training, but how could Klopp justify him starting ahead of either of these two players?
This is especially when you consider Van Dijk has the lower average rating of the two, but in his 2018/19 season, he was superior in every department compared to his fellow Reds centre-backs on WhoScored.
Now as for Mills suggesting Lovren is ahead of Gomez in the pecking order due to something unseen behind the scenes, if you look at the stats it’s easy to suggest a theory that doesn’t reflect badly on the England international.
In his 2018/19 campaign, Lovren noticeably was more formidable in the air than Gomez as he on average won 4.1 aerial duels per match compared to the 22-year-old’s 1.5 per game.
When you consider that Matip and Van Dijk have both proven to be powerful in the air, maybe Klopp opted for Lovren against Leicester rather than Gomez due to not wanting to be suss when it comes to crosses and corners being whipped in the box.
The 22-year-old is a different type of centre-back compared to Lovren as you’d trust him more when playing the ball out from the back, as he notably had a higher pass completion rate last season and is clearly faster which allows him to cover any error or misjudgement of pass as he has the legs to make up the ground on some of the league’s fastest attackers.
So once again you could argue that Gomez could have outperformed Lovren in training, but due to not being as physically dominating in the air, that caused him to be overlooked against the Foxes.
So you feel Mills has wrongly stirred the pot by implying that the defender isn’t doing enough to play more.
