Firmino explained: a final thread.

Firmino is a striker who plays as a false 9. He isn’t there to score goals. He’s the playmaker of the Liverpool team. Whilst his finishing has been horrendous this season, his link up play and passing have been excellent.

Despite playing as a striker he doesn’t play as the furthest forward player. That role is usually taken by Salah or Mané. As you can see here he’s normally behind them both or even in midfield.

Firmino doesn’t stay near the box and gets the service instead he IS the service. As shown by this heatmap he has dark points in both attack, midfield and defence. He’s everywhere trying to get the ball back and providing options for Liverpool where they may not have them.

Compared to other strikers he just isn’t as further up as them. This, along with his poor finishing, is why he isn’t scoring goals that often.

Firmino has a far more flexible role in the Liverpool team too. Last season against Crystal Palace he was deployed as a centre-forward then when Fabinho went off Injured played CDM with Henderson and then played right back after James Milner was sent off.

Firmino’s effect on this team just simply can’t be shown through stats. He doesn’t score a lot of goals but there’s more effort going on in the match that just goes completely unscene. For example, he didn’t score against Newcastle but came on and completely changed the game.

Here’s the Newcastle game where we were losing 1-0. Firmino came on, assisted two goals, and we won.

At the end of the day stat merchants can use stats and say he’s bad. But the only way you can truly understand how good Firmino is? Watch games.

And I’ll also end this with a question.

If Firmino is the worst striker in the league... why does he always start for Liverpool?

End of thread.