BOBBY’S A REAL BEAUTY
He may not be up for the personal prizes but fabulous Firmino can do the lot
THEY sang his name, relentlessly, after he had sealed this latest, emphatic win. The chant continued when the teams left the field and was still booming as the fans teemed out the Cricket Field Stand and headed home.
‘There’s something that the Kop want you to know,’ it went. ‘The best in the world is Bobby Firmino!’
Not many outside Liverpool would agree with that declaration. Firmino rarely commands the spotlight, he does not embark on prolific scoring sprees and when it comes to award season, he is nowhere to be seen. For all the talk of Liverpool’s front three, Firmino is frequently overlooked.
It was true, to a point, at Turf Moor. Headlines were captured by Sadio Mane’s volcanic reaction to being substituted, his fury fuelled by Mohamed Salah’s decision to go it alone and seek a goal, rather than make an unselfish pass to his team-mate.
The real showstopper in Liverpool’s fourth consecutive win of the campaign, though, was the boy from Brazil: Firmino’s fingerprints, with a goal and an assist for Mane, were all over a 3-0 triumph.
‘I don’t think there is anyone like him in the world,’ said Andrew
Robertson, the Scotland left back. ‘With his work rate, his technique, his goals and his all-round play... people will say there are better strikers, but what he does is so important for our team.
‘He does everything and that’s the beauty of Bobby. He can do it all. He’s our first line of defence, and I’ve not seen anybody better at doing that. He presses the defenders and doesn’t give them a minute. He comes back and nicks the ball in midfield for us. Bobby is so important for us defensively. ‘Then he goes up the park and scores goals and makes assists. The work he puts in during games is probably more than any striker in the world. We’d be lost without him.’ You cannot help but wonder, though, whether the appreciation for him within Anfield is felt universally. When Mane and Salah head to Milan in three weeks for the FIFA Best award, along with Virgil van Dijk, Firmino will be at home, which is curious when he helped Liverpool win the Champions League and was central to Brazil’s Copa America success.
Firmino seems to be in that strange predicament that once befell Barcelona’s Andres Iniesta, where everyone is so busy looking at the talents of others it took a while to register the influence he was exerting. The penny dropped eventually with Iniesta.
Should he continue in this vein, the same will be true for Firmino, whose late strike made him the first Brazilian to reach 50 goals in the Premier League.
You had to have sympathy for James Tarkowski, who had the onerous task of trying to keep tabs with Liverpool’s running man. ‘What a player!’ Jurgen Klopp boomed when the Liverpool manager was asked for a synopsis of Firmino’s efforts. ‘It’s unbelievable just how smart he is in decision-making, how good he is technically, how fit he is, how much he enjoys the really hard work. There’s no doubt about how I respect and love this boy. ‘But I don’t like to talk too much about it. He’s now away for 11 days, so hopefully he comes back healthy. Being skilled like Bobby is one thing. Mix it up with the attitude he puts in, that’s unbelievable. To mix those skills, always being there and stuff like that? Wow! it’s exceptional.’ To give you an idea about the esteem in which Klopp holds Firmino, Liverpool’s manager will stay up through the early hours to ensure he emerges from Brazil’s friendlies against Colombia (in Miami) and Peru (in Los Angeles) without any issues. ‘The Brazilian players do not write straight after the game,’ Klopp said with a wry smile. ‘They don’t text in the night. Very often friendlies with Brazil, the match information is not that easy to find.’ Nor, for that matter, are players such as Firmino. Liverpool unearthed a gem when they signed him from Hoffenheim four years ago. This is set to be the campaign when he really sparkles.