Jurgen Klopp feels the team didn’t maximise the movement of Takumi Minamino last night.
The Japan international started as our false-9, with Sadio Mane and Divock Origi either side.
In the first-half, the January signing was impressive – displaying nice touches and making probing runs behind the defence – but it was very rare his team-mates even tried to pick him out.
Watching Minamino in the stadium was interesting. His movement is actually very good – but perhaps his team-mates are not yet used to his runs.
As a no.9, Roberto Firmino comes deep, but Minamino was mixing up his runs by coming short and going long, too.
“Takumi (Minamino) had a really good game. We could have used him much more often. If Neco (Williams) sees him once or twice he was completely free at the edge [of the box], he shot the cross more or less. If he’d seen him it would have helped,” Klopp told the Metro.
Minamino actually came under some flak following the game, which we think is nonsense.
He’s clearly a very gifted technician, and has barely been given minutes since his arrival.
The key is for the attacker to start receiving a chance when Liverpool are on-song – so he can gel with our brilliant forwards when we’re ticking.
So far, his game-time has been when we’ve rotated, which isn’t a true reflection of what he can offer going forward.