It is safe to say Alexis Mac Allister has not always been the most popular choice as Liverpool’s deep-lying midfielder, but six months in, he is proving his doubters wrong.
By Jack Lusby, ThisIsAnfield.com
“Well, I’ve played almost in every position,” Alexis Mac Allister reflected in his first interview as a Liverpool player. “I think the managers who work with me know I can do it everywhere that they need me. As a player, I’m a player who tries to play as simple as possible, to help my team-mates defensively or attacking, and that’s the most important thing. I’m a team player and I will try to bring that to this club.”
Whether the Argentine – who helped win the World Cup largely as the player who knitted the midfield to an attack led by Lionel Messi – would have expected to take up full-time duties as Jürgen Klopp’s No. 6, however, is doubtful.
It is a vacancy Liverpool clearly needed to fill, as even before their unexpected departures to Saudi Arabia both Fabinho and Jordan Henderson were fading forces, but the £35 million signing from Brighton was not earmarked as the solution by many. The subsequent, failed pursuits of Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia suggest it may not have been the plan all along, but now Mac Allister is firmly settled as the anchorman.
That is a tactical decision that did not prove the most popular among Liverpool supporters in the first half of the season, with Mac Allister’s obvious talents perceived to be wasted in the midfield position furthest from the opponent’s penalty area, while his relative lack of pace was exposed. Six months on, though, Liverpool’s “team player” has surely won most over in this unlikely role.
His value as a No. 6 was no more underlined than in the Reds’ 4-0 victory over Bournemouth on January 21, on an evening that saw him dominate both on the pitch and on the post-match spreadsheets.
He won more duels than any other player (14), with 12 on the ground and two in the air, including a game-high 13 defensive actions, while not committing a single foul. He recovered possession more than any other player too (15 times), with only Ibrahima Konate (71) completing more passes than Mac Allister (63), who found his target a respectable 88 percent of the time and played a team-high 11 passes into the final third. He attempted nine tackles, the most of any Liverpool player in a Premier League game in the last eight seasons, though he only won three of those.
His use of the ball was perhaps more impressive than his work off it, with a series of brilliant, raking passes allowing Liverpool to shift the dynamic time and time again, and no player created more chances than Mac Allister’s four.
In an extended post-match interview with Sky Sports, there was a palpable sense of deja vu for the Liverpool manager when he was asked – again – about his use of the 24-year-old:
“He didn’t play the single six at Brighton, but he’s an incredibly smart player. And as long as you can create a compact formation, Macca is an outstanding six. You can all tell me what you want – he’s an outstanding six. On the ball, better than all sixes you can imagine, and [off] the ball, he’s just really strong. If the pitch is too big, the half-spaces are too open, yeah, I don’t know a lot of sixes who are then great.”
The manager did admit that, when left alone, “there might be a few who come off [better] on the defensive side of it.” This feels like a callback to Liverpool’s previous No. 6, Fabinho, who became known as ‘the Dyson’ for his all-consuming defensive ability at the base of the midfield.
Fabinho was far from limited on the ball, but there is a clear sense that Klopp and his staff have made a decision to move away from the destroyer-type defensive midfielder and towards a more modern interpretation of the role. Even Wataru Endo, an orthodox No. 6 who was brought in after the breakdown of deals for Caicedo and Lavia, has been frequently praised by Klopp for his preference to look forwards, not sideways or backwards, on the ball. “How often he broke lines with one touch,” Klopp said after the 5-1 win over Toulouse in October, “that was absolutely insane.”
Klopp’s deepest-lying midfielder is, naturally, required to win the ball – and only Fulham’s Joao Palhinha (1.81) attempts more tackles in the middle third of the pitch per 90 minutes in the Premier League than Mac Allister (1.67) – but they are also required to dictate a high tempo as energy returns as a staple of Liverpool 2.0.
It is perhaps why Stefan Bajčetić, the 19-year-old who remains on the sidelines due to issues related to his growth, has been earmarked as a long-term No. 6 for Liverpool, despite his early appearances at first-team level coming as a left-sided No. 8. The makeup of Klopp’s midfield has shifted, from a group of diligent workhorses to some of the most technically diverse players in the squad, and so too have the demands on his deep-lying midfielder.
That has arguably made Mac Allister the perfect option, particularly as Endo has departed mid-season to captain Japan at the Asian Cup – even if it is a role few expected from the “team player” back in July.
(Images from IMAGO)
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