There aren’t many Liverpool players who have entirely escaped criticism this season, if any. Most people would agree Luis Diaz was the Reds’ most consistent attacker prior to his injury while Alisson Becker has bailed the team out at the back as often as he can. But the rest? Their report cards would not make for happy reading.
Few have drawn as much scorn as Fabinho though. It’s in part thanks to the tremendous performances he has delivered over his time with Liverpool, which mean people expect him to be phenomenal every week, but much of the analysis has been entirely fair.
It has reached the point where former Red Jamie Carragher tweeted “Liverpool were awful, what is going on with Fabinho,” after the recent loss to Nottingham Forest. It’s a fair question to ask, but the player himself might have a simple answer.
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Fabinho went off with a thigh injury after only 30 minutes of his side’s 2-1 victory at Villa Park in early May. Less than three weeks later he played the entirety of the Champions League final, before jetting off to Asia to play in South Korea and Japan with Brazil. It was then only five weeks after those games that the former Monaco man started Liverpool’s first friendly of the summer, and only five outfield players at the club played more minutes than him across pre-season.
Only a few have played more in 2022/23 too. The injuries which have afflicted almost every other midfielder at the club have ensured Jurgen Klopp could barely rest the Brazilian whether he wanted to or not. The 29-year-old certainly looks like he could benefit from a breather, and if things aren’t coming to him as naturally as they once were, it appears obvious as to why that would be.
But understandable or not, his statistics show how he has struggled this season. Fabinho’s rate for blocks and interceptions per 90 minutes, as well as his success percentage for tackling opposition dribblers are all lower than they have been in any of his previous league campaigns in England ( per FBRef ). In only one of the last four seasons has he averaged fewer pressures too, and that was in 2020/21 when a significant portion of his time was spent covering at centre-back.
It's not all bad though, at least if we look at what Fabinho has brought on the ball rather than off it. Statsbomb recently launched a new metric: line-breaking passes. These are defined as “completed passes that advance the ball at least 10% closer to the opposition goal and that intersect a pair of defenders in close proximity (x-axis) or pass behind the defensive line (y-axis).” When it comes to completing these crucial offensive passes, there have been few players in the Premier League who have come close to Fabinho.
Fewer still (e.g. none) match up to Trent Alexander-Arnold, another Liverpool man who has been roundly criticised throughout this campaign. While his abilities must never be taken for granted, we expect this sort of thing from the playmaker at right-back. To see only a handful of players above Fabinho (and none bar Trent by more than one per 90 minutes) is far less predictable.
Or is it? After all, he has made some memorable passes in the past. If you search for Liverpool players with at least one through ball assist in three of the last four Premier League campaigns, you’ll only get Fabinho and Mohamed Salah returned as answers.
Indeed, many of the number three’s best passes have been to Salah. Lofted through balls have enabled the Egyptian to score against the likes of Crystal Palace and Brentford in the past, and there was a similar effort against Bournemouth in August too.
While those stand out, the data shows Fabinho has been splitting opposition defences over four times per game this term. His defensive work undoubtedly needs to improve, and fast, but if he can get back on track in that regard then he can become dominant in both directions.
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