Just how good was Lucas Leiva against Manchester United? In an excellent team performance, it isn’t usually right to single out individuals. Match of the Day 2 picked out Yossi Benayoun – who was outstanding. But because Lucas has attracted a (decreasing) amount of criticism for not being Xabi Alonso, I wanted to highlight his performance. In particular, to the ‘wise’ fans on the train to the match who considered him ‘not a Liverpool player’.
Lucas has played very well in the past – often away from home. His contributions against Newcastle United last Christmas and against Manchester United in April were both very good – but significantly came away from home – where performances are less noticed and the pressure that much less. I had been concerned that the profile piece in The Times before the game was poorly timed and would only add to the pressure on his young shoulders.
No amount of statistics can quite describe how well Lucas played. He was very effective at denying space to Scholes and Carrick. His distribution was almost flawless. He set up the second goal with a perfect pass. He conceded too many freekicks (five) but worked well with Mascherano, knowing when to get forward and knowing when to defend. Lucas was energetic, fully committed and never hid from the ball or a challenge.
In fact, the map of his passing from this game against Manchester United was very similar to Paul Scholes’, in terms of accuracy and frequency, although I thought that Scholes was quieter and less effective as the game went on.
by Guardian Chalkboards
It was actually a better performance by Lucas than the one he put in at Old Trafford against Manchester United in April. It appears as though he passed the ball forward much more in this game – and provided a more offensive option. He has previously been criticised for just playing it simple and not offering much to keep the team going forward.
by Guardian Chalkboards
It was still take time for Lucas to be appreciated by the fans. Reputations are won easily and hard to change (for good or ill). It took a while for Didi Hamann to win his status whilst Alonso lived off his first season’s contribution for season two and three. But if Lucas continues like this, he will eventually win over the fans.
Related posts:
- The changing role of Javier Mascherano
- Bolton v Liverpool post match analysis
- Liverpool v Manchester City reserves: post match analysis
- Liverpool reserves v Man United reserves post match analysis
- West Ham v Liverpool post match analysis
Tags: analysis, Lucas, Manchester United
Great analysis Matt. I agree with your points, but would also add that Lucas’ forward runs add a lot to the team as well. The obvious example is the one-two with Kuyt to set up Ngog for the second goal, but all game he was making good runs forward. One (again a one-tow with Kuyt) led to him having a shot from the edge of the box. Another won a freekick on the side of Man U’s box. Several times he got into good positions and the pass to him was cut out.
It is noticeable that he doesn’t go forward when the ball is in the middle third, but once it gets into the final third he always gets up to support the attack, and does so with intelligent runs. I think it’s this aspect to his game that makes him more effective than Alonso. As you mentioned in a different analysis, Mascherano has been taking responsibility for being the playmaker, and he has shown a great ability to spray the ball out to the wings. This means that we don’t really miss Alonso’s passing, and the fact that Lucas and Mascherano are both good pressers and tacklers means we are stronger than when we had one good presser and tackler and one static, poor presser who had one aspect to his game that was of a very high standard, but was poor in most other aspects.
For Ngog’s goal, Alonso would probably have made the initial pass to Kuyt that Lucas did, but he wouldn’t have the ran the length of the pitch to receive the ball back and set up Ngog.
Thanks Robert – all good points. As you said, Lucas also set up Kuyt for the one on one chance that he skewed wide in the first half. I’m not sure we’ve yet seen the best of his ‘box to box’ style which Tim Vickery and others have noted but his tactical discipline is undoubtedly really important.