Andy Gray has blasted Roberto Firmino for his poor performance in Liverpool’s 1-1 draw against West Ham at the London Stadium on Monday night.
The Reds dropped two points in the race for the Premier League title, but were perhaps lucky to have not dropped all three with James Milner clearly in an offside position in the build-up to Sadio Mane’s first-half goal.
Everton legend Gray signled out Firmino as being particularly bad on the night, claiming that it was one of the worst displays by him that he can recall.
“The front three didn’t spark tonight,” Gray said, as shown on beIN Sports’ official Twitter account on Monday night.
“Firmino was as poor as I’ve seen him. I don’t remember Roberto Firmino being as poor as that for a while.
"If the front three aren't getting goals, no one is."
Are Liverpool too reliant on Salah, Mane and Firmino?#beINPL #LFC pic.twitter.com/plKv3oGcvq
— beIN SPORTS (@beINSPORTS_EN) February 4, 2019
OPINION
Firmino had a stinker on Monday night. The 27-year-old has been really inconsistent for Liverpool this season and his latest outing was perhaps the worst it has been for the Brazilian in quite a while because in all honesty, it was a shock to see him play that bad. Gray has a point about Liverpool’s front three not clicking and that wasn’t the first time this term that has been the issue. It seems that all it takes now is for one of the front three of Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah and Firmino to have a bad game and it all starts to fall apart. The reason why Liverpool are top of the Premier League this season is their defence. Jurgen Klopp has solved the defensive issue at Anfield but in doing so his attack has lost something. Firmino has been quiet in too many games this season but will Klopp be brave enough to drop him? He probably shouldn’t, simply on the basis that none of the back-up options are better than him. Firmino’s spot in the starting line-up has been untouchable this season with him appearing 33 times in all competitions, so dropping him would be a major risk.