When Fabinho went down holding his ankle in Liverpools game against Napoli last Wednesday, Liverpool collectively held their breath in the hopes that he would pop straight back up. Two days later, it was confirmed by the club that the Brazilian would be out until the new year. Due to Fabinhos quality, this is obviously a big blow at a busy time fixtures wise, and so it begs it the question of how Liverpool can deal with Fabinhos absence. In this tactical analysis, Ill answer that question and show how Liverpool will adapt to the absence of Fabinho, by looking at Liverpools upcoming fixtures and assessing their midfield options.
The requirements of a six within Liverpools system
This section of the analysis could also have been titled what are Fabinhos main strengths, and Liverpools other midfield options possess some of these requirements but lack others as we will discuss. Therefore, Klopp must select which player operates at the six based on the game and the playing style of the opposition, as different opposition playing styles will change the requirements of the six slightly and prioritise certain skills.
Press resistance
The first of the attributes we will discuss will be press resistance. This is defined as a players ability to retain possession or progress play while under pressure from the opposition. Fabinho is extremely press resistant and is comfortable to receive the ball while under pressure, in order to create better angles for teammates.
We can see an example of this below, where Fabinho receives the ball with a man at his back pressing. Fabinho has a quick scan and recognises a player is pressing intensely from behind, and also recognises the pass back to Lovren is a dangerous one, with Sergio Agüero pressing that pass already. The passing lane to Van Dijk is also cut off by De Bruyne, and so Fabinho takes advantage of the Man City presser running too quickly to press, and simply shuffles the ball one way and protects it with his body.
This allows Liverpool to progress up the pitch through the space left by the presser, where rather than passing Fabinho uses his pace to sprint into the space, allowing Roberto Firmino to remain in a higher position and make forward runs.
We can see a final example here, where Fabinho is
