We love Bobby. He’s a Liverpool legend. He’s been a major, major part of the great things we’ve done under Jurgen Klopp – and this will never be forgotten.
But wow – it’s incredible that a player with such technique and skill cannot put his foot through the football.
“Roberto Firmino has never scored enough, but the more his goal attempts carry the velocity of a backpass the more it becomes a major concern,” writes Chris Bascombe in the Telegraph…
And he’s right. Firmino either scores tap-ins, the odd-header, or he doesn’t. His shooting ability from anywhere around the penalty spot and further out is abysmal.
This term, he has six goals in 31 Premier League matches. Only Timo Werner has a worse record in comparison to his expected goals (xG) this season.
When Sadio Mane was scoring too, Virgil van Dijk was chipping in with headed efforts from set-pieces, Trent Alexander-Arnold was firing in freekicks and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain offered a steady return from the bench, we could get away with his lack of goalscoring.
But now, it’s Salah or bust. There’s too much pressure on the Egyptian’s shoulders. It’ll be much easier to cope when our defenders return, as we may only need one goal to collect three points – but still – more consistent finishing, probably by a new centre-forward – looks increasingly more necessary.
I have noticed and worried about this for years now. I have never seen a player so technically gifted so inept at hitting the ball, it looks like his technique is all wrong, constantly shanks the shot and hits the ball a bit over the top which drives it into the pitch .. can’t put as they say his laces through it. This is not an accident it’s poor mechanics. Not everyone can have a great shot but he is absolutely abysmal.. they don’t need to mark him if he is more than 10 yards from the goal as he will never generate either power or precision with his shot. It has always been bad but it was masked by the goals coming from elsewhere. As much as they praise him for his other contributions one simply can’t have a starter who is absolutely no goal threat! Just can’t.. at least Werner has tremendous speed so he can still be a major threat but with Bobby u see most teams just focusing on Salah and Mane as they are not worried about him..