Liverpool boosted their chances of progressing for the last 16s of the Champions League on Wednesday night, beating Red Star Belgrade convincingly at Anfield
While Mo Salah reaching 50 goals for the club might have been the main headline of 4-0 victory, the performance of Fabinho also caught the eye of many Liverpool supporters.
Since his arrival from Monaco in the summer, the Brazilian’s playing time has been limited for the Reds. Prior to Wednesday’s game, he’d only clocked up 123 minutes of football for his new club across all competitions.
Despite this, Fabinho, who turned 25 earlier in the week, put in an impressive display in a defensive midfield role, Jurgen Klopp praising him after full-time.
Asked for his thoughts on his performance, Klopp responded: “Very good. Very, very good. The present for his birthday was not that he was in the line-up, it was that we played his favourite system with a double-six!
“He played really well and it was good to see. He was very aggressive and everything was there. For his first game for a while, his second [start] from the beginning, it was good, really good.
“It is quite impressive what people saw tonight. It always helps a player if you play a good game – it helped us tonight and helped him. That was the start, so let’s carry on.”
A short compilation from BT Sport highlights how effective he was at breaking up play from the opposition during the game, completing nine tackles in 90 minutes.
• 90 minutes
• 9 tackles
• 80 passesKlopp: "For his birthday present, we played his favourite system!"
"Very good, very aggressive."
Fabinho does not mess about 👊 pic.twitter.com/kTjZmQl3XB
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) October 25, 2018
Liverpool travel to Belgrade for the return with Red Star in two weeks, knowing that another three points in the Serbian capital will go a long way to helping them seal qualification for the knockout phase of the competition.
