Love him or hate him, Charlie Adam is officially a Liverpool player. What does his arrival mean for Liverpool in 2011-12? Will someone make way to accommodate him? Where will he play? What will he bring to the club? Is he really good enough?
The reported £7.5 million paid for the 25 year old Scot would seem quite a good bit of business, considering the extraordinary prices that have been paid for British players recently. Let’s take a look at what £7.5 million has bought us.
Charlie Adam is most well-known for his passing ability. According to Anfield Index, he had an overall pass completion rate of 72% from a total of 1883 open play passes. Not great really, considering the best passers in the league last season were all up in the mid to high 80′s.
One explanation for this was that Adam’s passes were more often difficult balls which attempted to create a goal scoring chance, rather than easy ones looking to maintain possession of the ball. This is reflected in the high number of chances he created (80) and his total of 8 assists. Not bad at all considering he was playing for a club which eventually went down.
Another positive aspect of Adam’s game is his goal scoring ability. In total he scored an impressive 12 goals last season. Eight of those came from penalties and two from free kicks. It definitely won’t hurt to have that kind of set piece firepower on hand but this leads me to my biggest question: Will he be given the same amount of freedom at Liverpool as he was at Blackpool?
If my memory serves me correctly, Dirk Kuyt didn’t miss a single penalty last season. It would seem unnecessary to just hand over the responsibility, when the player currently doing the job is doing it well.
The same goes for free kicks. There’s no questioning his quality here but he won’t be able to command control of set pieces anymore. Steven Gerrard and Luis Suarez will offer him stiff competition in that department.
Most importantly, he can’t be afforded the same free role that he enjoyed at Blackpool. There are just too many quality players in the center of midfield. Lucas Leiva is a certainty in the holding role, but ahead of him Steven Gerrard, Raul Meireles and Aquilani will all be competing for an attacking, influential role, while Henderson, Spearing and Shelvy will be snapping at their heels.
That means he will have to be content with being part of the team, rather than the star he was at Blackpool. Only time will tell if he’ll be able to cope.
With all this competition, someone may have to leave. The most likely candidate is Aquilani. The Italian enjoyed a good season at Juventus and showed moments of brilliance in his last few appearances in a Liverpool shirt. However, with FSG’s emphasis on statistics influencing transfers, Alberto’s injury record could be his downfall and see him shipped on.
There have been rumours Meireles might leave but I think he is too valuable to the team to let go and I think FSG are smart enough to realize that.
Coming back to Adam. Even though he might not be as technically gifted as the aforementioned players he does have one thing going for him (something that he shares with Jordan Henderson). He really, really wants to play for this club and he understands what Liverpool FC means to the people of Liverpool and its place in the football world.
That means we can at least expect he will give 100% to the Liverpool shirt every single game.
That’s a quality that’s been missing from Liverpool players in recent years and something that the manager and the owners are addressing in their transfer policy. A team that are totally committed to the club has a better chance of succeeding than one with a few superstars who are more concerned with themselves.
That being said, I don’t think Adam will be starting week in, week out for Liverpool. For me, in a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 Gerrard, Meireles, Lucas and even Aquilani should get the nod every time. However, the extra depth that Adam will provide will be something that Liverpool hasn’t had in a long time and something that will go a long way to helping us achieve success in the new season.
Adam is not the best midfielder gracing the premier league, but he’s a decent player, who understands the history of Liverpool FC and if he can accept that he’s not the main man anymore, but just one part of a team, there’s certainly no harm in having him at the club.
Submitted by Liverpool Football Blog
