Joe Thomlinson, Zac Djellab and Patrick van Straaten appeared on the latest edition of Football Daily’s Sunday Vibes to discuss all of the latest Premier League news and they spent some time talking about Liverpool forward Roberto Firmino’s future during the show.
Firmino has been at Anfield since the summer of 2015 when he joined the Reds from Bundesliga side TSG Hoffenheim for £36.9m.
The Brazil international has scored 79 goals and provided 62 assists in 252 games for the Merseyside club and he has formed part of the Reds’ highly acclaimed front three alongside Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane.
However, during this recent edition of Football Daily’s Sunday Vibes, Van Straaten cast some doubt over the future of the 29-year-old attacker who is under contract with Liverpool until the end of June 2023.
He said: “I think that next summer I’d be looking to buy a new starting member of that front three anyway, and if you can sell him for big money – I think he’ll be 29 – it would probably be sensible, but that’s not because I think that he’s really, seriously in decline, I think it’s a really small sample so far this season.
“A bigger issue with Firmino throughout his career is that he’s quite a bad finisher.
“Last season, I think he was about six goals behind expected goals, like he’s always finished behind expected goals, and what’s great about him as a forward is obviously not really that he’s like a clinical striker.
“I guess that I don’t mind too much Firmino’s underperformance because I think the attack as a unit is still working. I think sometimes you do just have somebody in there who, perhaps, is not as lethal in front of goal because they facilitate the players around them.
“Let’s see where we are after 10 games, and if after 10 games these numbers are pretty stable, then I would start to be concerned and then if I were Liverpool, I’d start seriously scouting for a striker next summer.”
Do you think it would be wise for Liverpool to cash in on Firmino next summer?
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TIF Thoughts on what Van Straaten had to say about Firmino…
According to Transfermarkt, Salah and Mane are currently Liverpool’s joint-most valuable players (£108m), while only six Reds players are valued higher than Firmino (£64.8m).
All three players are currently under contract with the Merseyside club until the end of June 2023 but all three of them will also be 29 years old next summer, with Salah – the youngest of the three – set to turn 29 next June.
So, it may be fair to say that all three members of Liverpool’s main front three are highly-valued but knowing that all three men will be in their early 30s when their current Reds contracts are up and knowing that forwards tend to have the earliest peak and earliest decline in football, as per Statsbomb, it may be understandable why Van Straaten feels it could be smart for Jurgen Klopp’s side to consider cashing in on one of their front three next summer.
It will be interesting to see if the Merseyside club feels the same and, if so, then if they deem Firmino to be the most expendable of these three players.