There were 27, then only 16, then a mere 12 and now just six. It can be simplistic to judge a player by his goal tally, especially when his contributions are as varied as Roberto Firmino’s and when his manager usually appears utterly unconcerned by the numbers.
And yet there feels a symbolic decline. Firmino’s 27-goal campaign in 2017/18 was a stunning outlier. Sixteen felt both more normal and admirable for an all-rounder; six is insufficient. Now he is the centre-forward for the defending champions who averages worse than a goal every six games. They, meanwhile, have lost their last six home matches. A catalyst for their rise has become a face of freefall, an idiosyncratic solution something of a problem.
Not merely, it should be said, because of his diminishing returns in a season when Sadio Mane has been unusually impotent and Diogo Jota often injured. When Liverpool have looked exhausted, it reflects the way Firmino feels tired; perhaps he is burnt out by playing almost 550 games before his 30th birthday in his inimitable, high-energy fashion. But there is a knock-on effect: when the first line of the defence malfunctions, it can expose the makeshift centre-backs and the high line.
There are a multitude of reasons why Liverpool are in crisis, but in different ways, they are without their two most important players. One is absent, the other a shadow of his former self. Virgil van Dijk anchored the defence, Firmino powered the attack. He has been simultaneously the third forward and the fourth midfield, the man who made their tactics work. Liverpool’s inverted forward line has also contained an inversion of responsibilities, the wingers charged with scoring more, but Firmino made it possible.
He has been the definitive Jurgen Klopp player, the man whose use as a false nine inspired his first flagship wins, at Chelsea and Manchester City, the one who personified his ethos. If pressing is the best playmaker, as Klopp famously said, then Firmino was his most fervent presser, the runner found in positions where others used a creator. His creativity came from his industry, chances from hassling and harrying. He has been the hyperactive disruptor.
In happier times, Klopp referred to Firmino as his ‘connector’. Now Liverpool feel disconnected; from each other, from their past selves. Klopp has called Firmino the engine of his team; now that engine is spluttering. Injuries, fixture congestion and a lack of their usual pre-season all explain why their pressing statistics are down, but if Firmino, his ultimate heavy-metal footballer, is now playing soft metal, it explains why their identity is no longer intensity.
It raises the issue of if there is a Klopp Liverpool without Firmino as well as if the Brazilian can recapture his former urgency. He is the opposite of the pure No. 10, the technician whose gifts were so pronounced they never needed physicality. He is the anti-Bergkamp, Zola or Dalglish. His touch can be imperfect and seems to be getting worse. His finishing was never the most precise and now, averaging a goal every 11 shots in the Premier League, it has got worse.
There was something stunningly improbable about how Liverpool could become champions with 99 points in a season when their designated centre-forward scored a solitary league goal at Anfield, but it illustrated how everyone contributed in everyone else’s supposed domain. Not any more. So what do Liverpool need most in his position, a scorer, a creator or a presser in the final third? The answer may reveal their next direction.
The question of the succession has lingered as an Anfield subplot, but could be thrust to the forefront. Mohamed Salah, Mane and Firmino were all born within nine months of each other. That they peaked at the same time enabled Liverpool to touch the heights in three remarkable seasons. It was inevitable one would have to be moved on first; the recent evidence may be that Firmino, the man who has conserved least energy, may have flagged fastest.
But he is also the hardest to replace, because he is unique. His understudies have never been duplicates for the simple reason that no one resembles Firmino. Jota has more common denominators with Salah and Mane than Firmino. It was instructive that, in Firmino’s injury-enforced absence against Fulham on Sunday, Klopp’s formation felt inspired in part by another gegenpresser, Ralph Hasenhuttl, as his 4-2-3-1 verged on 4-2-2-2. There was no Firmino surrogate. The result showed it didn’t work, but nor has much else for Liverpool in a sorry 2021. It may lead them to consider previously heretical thoughts, like what life after Firmino looks like and how soon it starts.
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