With the EFL Cup final upon us, focus turns to who can be the biggest difference makers when Chelsea take on Liverpool at Wembley on Sunday.
One player emerging as one of the chief influences for the Merseyside giants is Thiago Alcantara, who made his 50th appearance for the club in Wednesday's 6-0 thrashing of Leeds United.
He was a certified medal collector at Bayern Munich, and Sunday sees the former Barcelona midfielder's first opportunity to win a trophy with Liverpool. It has not all been a bed of roses for him, though.
A statement of intent
Liverpool were champions of England for the first time in three decades after romping to the Premier League title and had won the Champions League a year earlier.
Then in September 2020, the club announced the signing of Thiago.
The cultured midfielder was fresh off winning a treble of the Bundesliga, DFB Pokal and Champions League with Bayern.
However, doing so seemed like the perfect place to end things after seven years in Bavaria. After all, how could you ever top that?
So, he opted for a new challenge in England.
On his arrival, Thiago made clear his intention to continue adding to his trophy haul at Anfield.
"When the years are passing, you are trying to win as much as you can – and when you win, you want to win more," he told Liverpool's website after his move for a reported fee of £20million (€23.8m).
His debut immediately showed what a difference he could make, as he came on at half-time against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge with the score 0-0, but the hosts reduced to ten men after Andreas Christensen's red card.
In his 45 minutes on the pitch, Thiago completed more passes (75) than any Chelsea player did across the entire game. Two Sadio Mane goals gave Liverpool a win that seemed to suggest they could potentially march to another title in 2020-21, though that would ultimately be far from the case.
After missing nearly a month with COVID-19, his second appearance came in the Merseyside derby at Goodison Park in October where he shone once again, but it was a game that saw Virgil van Dijk suffer a season-ending knee injury.
On top of that, Thiago was on the end of a rash Richarlison challenge. The former Barca man would not play again until December.
He returned when Liverpool were down to the bare bones in defence. Joe Gomez was also out for the season and Joel Matip would not be far behind.
Midfielders Jordan Henderson and Fabinho were regularly having to play at centre-back, meaning Thiago came into an unsettled team that could not stop dropping points.
Liverpool lost nine of the first 21 games in which Thiago featured, including six games in a row at Anfield, while they were dumped out of the FA Cup and Champions League.
Klopp was eventually able to stop the rot by utilising Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams, who performed admirably in defence as Liverpool rescued a third-place finish, but fielding relative rookies at the back completely changed how the Reds played.
Some pundits surmised the player was unsuited to Klopp's high press, high tempo approach, but quite simply, Liverpool were not playing Klopp's football during the second half of last season. As seen since the return of Van Dijk and Matip, as well as the addition of Ibrahima Konate from RB Leipzig, he needs a certain grade of centre-back to be able to do that.
Thiago came into his second season looking forward to playing in a team with its regular spine for the first time since that fateful game at Goodison Park, and on the occasions where he has been able to, he has shown just why he is rated so highly.
He scored a stunning goal against Porto in the Champions League group stage, hitting the ball from range with such delicate precision that it seemed to glide an inch off the ground all the way from his foot until it nestled in the corner of the Kop-end net.
Thiago is not a goalscorer though, or even much of a goal creator, directly anyway. In his 235 appearances for Bayern he scored just 31 goals and provided 35 assists, while so far in England he has three goals and one assist in his 50 outings.
However, he is clearly making a difference to the 2021-22 iteration of Liverpool.
Thiago has missed 20 games this season either through injury or COVID-19, and Liverpool have played 28 fixtures in all competitions without him in their starting XI.
Of those, they have won 18 (64.3 per cent), drawn eight and lost two, with an average of 2.5 goals for per game, and one goal against.
Yet Liverpool have won all 12 matches in which Thiago has started, with an average of 2.9 goals for per game, and just 0.2 goals against.
A prime example of his increasing influence came against Norwich City. Thiago was introduced in the 62nd minute with his team 1-0 down. Five minutes later, Liverpool were 2-1 up.
Only six of Liverpool's starters attempted more than his 48 passes despite his short time on the pitch, and Thiago completed 45 (93.8 per cent). Of those passes, 34 were in Norwich's half.
Thiago carried that form on in the rout of Leeds, completing 52 of his 56 passes (92.9 per cent, the highest in the game, but he also showed another side to of his ability, making four tackles, twice as many as the next most from a team-mate (Fabinho), before being substituted in the 68th minute.
Keeping him fit is the big challenge, but should he be able to do so, Klopp potentially now has the depth to challenge on all fronts.
With a quadruple still in the offing, having Thiago available could be the difference between success and failure in multiple competitions for
Who knows? If Liverpool overcome Chelsea on Sunday and win the EFL Cup for a record ninth time, perhaps he can even eclipse that sensational final season at Bayern after all.
Lydia Bedford takes Brentford Under-18s reins in landmark appointment for women
Lydia Bedford has been announced as Brentford Under-18s head coach in a landmark appointment.
Bedford has left her position as assistant boss with Arsenal’s women team to become the first female coach to take the reins at a men’s professional side in England.
The former Leicester manager is set to work alongside Jon-Paul Pittman, who will join as assistant coach from Forest Green.
Brentford director of football Phil Giles said: “I’m really pleased that we’ve managed to attract such talented coaches as Lydia and Jon-Paul to our under-18 team for next year.
“We undertook an extensive recruitment process for these roles. Lydia and Jon-Paul were the two best candidates, and thankfully we were able to finalise their recruitment to the staff.
“I’m sure they will excel, and we all look forward to working with them through pre-season and beyond.”
Kyogo Furuhashi ‘bullish’ about making Scottish Cup final – Ange Postecoglou
Celtic striker Kyogo Furuhashi is “bullish” about his chances of making the Scottish Cup final despite not training so far this week.
The Japan international went off with a leg knock during last Saturday’s 5-0 win over Aberdeen after coming off worse in a 50-50 with Dons goalkeeper Kelle Roos.
The 28-year-old has scored 33 goals this season and won a clean sweep of Scotland’s player of the year awards, and he has an impressive record in cup finals, with match-winning doubles in the League Cup in each of his two seasons with Celtic.
Boss Ange Postecoglou said: “Kyogo is progressing. He hasn’t trained yet. The plan is to get him out there tomorrow (Friday) and see how he goes. He is doing some individual stuff this afternoon.
“He always is, but he is still pretty bullish about playing so we will just see how he goes.
“We will be guided by him a little bit. We have done that in the past. He has had a couple of times, whether it’s with his shoulder or in last year’s League Cup final he went in with a hamstring that wasn’t totally healed and scored a couple of goals.
“So I will be guided by him. He is very strong mentally so if he gives us the green light we will put him in there.”
The only definite absentee is Australia midfielder Aaron Mooy, who has been nursing a back problem in recent weeks.
Postecoglou said: “(Alistair) Johnston is fine, he has trained all week and (Sead) Haksabanovic is back in so he is available as well. The only real absence is Aaron Mooy.”
UEFA awaits reports following Jose Mourinho’s rant at referee Anthony Taylor
UEFA is awaiting the match official’s reports before deciding whether to take action against Jose Mourinho for his rant at referee Anthony Taylor after Roma’s Europa League final defeat, the PA news agency understands.
Roma boss Mourinho was critical of Taylor in his post-match press conference after his side’s penalty shoot-out defeat to Sevilla in Budapest on Wednesday night.
And in video footage which later emerged on social media, the former Chelsea and Manchester United manager is seen gesticulating at Taylor and officials in the stadium car park and heard saying “disgrace”.
Taylor booked Mourinho during the game, which finished 1-1 after extra time before Sevilla sealed their seventh Europa League triumph by winning 4-1 in a penalty shoot-out.
Tempers simmered on and off the pitch in a disappointing final, with 13 players shown yellow cards, seven of them to Roma players, while fourth official Michael Oliver had his work cut out to keep control of both dug-outs.
The game was littered with delays, with a total of 25 minutes’ stoppage time added to the 120 minutes of playing time.
Mourinho lost for the first time in his sixth major European final, while Sevilla extended their record number of tournament wins following previous successes in 2006, 2007, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2020.
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