With the Premier League taking a break this past week attention turned to the historic FA Cup, in a few years time the famous cup will be celebrating its 150th anniversary and the pick of the 3rd round games was clearly the Merseyside derby and Liverpool v Everton.
Liverpool goalkeeper Adrian who came from West Ham would not have thought too much about the game when the draw was made given that he is playing second fiddle to the excellent Brazilian Alisson. But Reds manager Jurgen Klopp promised to change his team up. After all Liverpool’s major priority this season is the league title which they haven’t won for 30 years. Also there are Champions League games starting up soon and the German coach has to be aware of injuries. This has given Adrian the chance to shine.
Adrian of course has already impressed in the league this season. Near the beginning Alisson was unfortunate to get injured and had to miss a number of games giving Adrian his big chance in goal, and he relished it. Adrian has started 8 games and earned 11 points, he was also able to keep 2 clean sheets. All of this would have given reassurance to Klopp to start Adrian against Everton and he now looks set to be Liverpool’s number 1 goalkeeper for the cup competition which would be the right thing to do now.
Against Everton, Liverpool were in the rare situation where they started as underdogs even though they were at home. The reason was that just four regulars had been picked by Klopp and most of the team were made up of Liverpool’s youth players. Everton picked a full strength side, this did not look like it would end well for the Reds.
Of course in the end it did and they won the game 1-0 denying Everton their first win at Anfield since 1999. The hero of the game really went unnoticed, and arguably it was Adrian. His saves in the first half kept Liverpool in the game in the first place and it was impressive to see how energetic and elastic he was given that he doesn’t get much game time. It just underlines how strong Liverpool’s squad are this season that Adrian is their number 2 goalkeeper where for most teams he would be first choice.
Had this game been a league one, Adrian’s exploits may have been more championed. He certainly would have earned his 7 points for keeping a clean sheet if a league match. And above all he is our player of the week in England. His current value is 6m.
How well do you know English football? Want to challenge the best English Fantasy Managers? Play www.epl-fantasy.com now
To leave a comment, you must be logged into www.eurofantasyleague.com