Obviously, Joe Gomez didn’t have too much to do against the Irons on Sunday afternoon…
As a team, we dealt with the threat of Felipe Anderson, Marko Arnautovic and Michail Antonio pretty well, but our young Englishman was actually starting his first Premier League game as a central defender.
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Last term, he was deployed solely as a right-back by Jurgen Klopp, but with Dejan Lovren and Joel Matip unavailable, the boss went with Gomez, who did himself proud.
Below, you’ll see the youngster perfectly composed in possession, positionally smart, sharp to get out and bite at attackers when needed and decent in the air, too.
Gomez will have a tougher ask against Crystal Palace on Monday, with Roy Hodgson’s side much more likely to play a direct, physical brand of football. But alongside Virgil van Dijk, who leads our backline phenomenally well, we reckon he’ll do just fine.
Pictures courtesy of Sky Sports:
Joe Gomez (21) vs West Ham
A classy performance,in his first ever PL start at CB
Made just 1 error all game & even then his recovery pace got him out of trouble
Gomez establishing himself with van Dijk could be key to a LFC title challenge & for England pic.twitter.com/iwWfEhI1PV
— Premier League Panel (@PremLeaguePanel) August 15, 2018