Liverpool journalist James Pearce has been sharing his thoughts on the centre-back defensive partnership of Joe Gomez and Joel Matip.Â
This comes after Pearce recently made an appearance on The Athletic’s Liverpool-themed podcast The Red Agenda where he spoke about a number of talking points concerning the Merseyside club.
On the subject of Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp playing Matip and Gomez together in defence in the wake of Virgil van Dijk’s serious injury, Pearce had this to say on the matter.
He said: “What worries me with them as a combination – and probably is one of the reasons why they’ve never played together as a combination before – is they’re both relatively quiet.
“I wouldn’t say either of them fit into that natural leader, organiser, cajoling people around you category and I think they’re both players who have benefited massively from having Van Dijk alongside them.
“The challenge for them now is [that] they both have to come out of their shell. I think possibly it doesn’t maybe come naturally, but they’re going to have to because Liverpool’s season absolutely depends on it so they’re going to have to find their voices and they’re going to have to take on more responsibility.”
Gomez has made four appearances for Liverpool in the Premier League so far this season in which he has earned himself a season rating of 6.42/10 for his performances.
With Matip, he has only made two league appearances for the Reds this season and earned himself a season rating of 6.16/10 (per WhoScored).
Gomez replaced the injured Van Dijk in the early stages of Liverpool’s 2-2 draw against Everton at the weekend and then played alongside Matip for the rest of the match.
Are you confident Gomez and Matip can make a good defensive partnership?
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TIF Thoughts on James Pearce’s comments on Matip and Gomez…
It seems as though Pearce thinks Matip and Gomez have some work to do to become a successful defensive partnership for Liverpool.
Even though they didn’t win the match at Goodison Park, at least Matip and Gomez got some experience of playing alongside each other in it.
Moving forward, it’ll be interesting to see if the pair start to come out of their shells as Pearce said in the podcast and start to show some leadership skills on the pitch in Van Dijk’s absence.