West Bromwich Albion podcaster and journalist Adrian Goldberg has been sharing his thoughts on Baggies midfielder Jake Livermore and his current situation at the Midlands club.
This comes after Goldberg co-hosted a recent edition of West Brom-themed podcast The Liquidator, where he spoke about a range of topics concerning Valerien Ismael’s side.
On the subject of West Brom’s current midfield and attacking options in their squad after recently drawing their third Championship game in a row with a 1-1 draw against Preston North End, Goldberg had this to say about Livermore.
He said: “I think that unless Ismael addresses that central-midfield issue, and he shows no inclination to do that at the moment, it’s like, ‘oh, yeah, Jake’s our leader’ – well, he might be a leader in the dressing room, great, leave him in the dressing room.
“In all the games he’s played, he’s put a shift in – don’t get me wrong. I’m not running him down in a stupid way. In every game he’s played, he’s put a shift in, he’s made important tackles in midfield, but his passing hasn’t been up to snuff and when the opposition knock it over, as they are inclined to do because of the way we set up, he does not get back in time and cover us.
“So he either has to foul an opposition player in midfield, which he does frequently, or just not be at the races when the team is at the other end, and I think that’s particularly problematic in home games when we’re pressing forward and teams hit us on the break.”
TIF Thoughts on Adrian Goldberg’s comments on Livermore…
Given how Livermore has started every league game for the Baggies so far this season, while this suggests that the Englishman is an important figure for Ismael, the fact that the midfielder only managed to earn himself a match rating of 5/10 for his performance against Preston from Birmingham Live, which said that the team “needed a little more composure and communication from their skipper in key moments,” says to us that he has some areas of his game to improve on if he is going to continue playing for the team on a regular basis.
Do you think Jake Livermore should be dropped from the team?
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Moving forward, with the Baggies set to take on Queens Park Rangers on Friday evening, it’ll be interesting to see whether or not Ismael continues to select Livermore in the starting XI and if he can put in a better performance than he did against Preston and improve on some of the aspects that Goldberg spoke about.
In our view, unless Livermore can start to put in some impressive performances for the team on a regular basis, then Ismael should consider taking him out of the team if he thinks it would benefit them.
In other news: ‘From what I gather’ – Jose Masi drops claim on West Brom ‘issue’