Roberto Firmino

Like, they do it okay, but they're not amazing counter attackers.

They're nothing like, you know, let's say the peak of Ox and Firmino and Salah and Mane and all the rest of them streaming forward.

They're nothing like that.

They're nowhere near as good as that level.

I think he's phrased it right.

Nothing will ever change the legacy of Salah, Mane, Firmino, the OG front three, what they meant to us, what they still do, what they do.

But, you would love to love this team, wouldn't you? You'd love in a few months to be talking about, because it's building, but that real love for Izak, Barkola, Virts, all these players, be the next chapter, as it were, as Virgil's talking about, yeah? Step up.

They're starting to do it, but they've got to keep that going.

I think it makes sense if you've got flying wingers.

You could play Alvarez almost like Firmino played for Liverpool, almost like Gabby J. Deuce did in 22-23 when Martinelli and Saka were on fire.

We don't have flying wingers anymore.

So I don't get how that one works.

high up the pitch and you've got a 4v5 or whatever it may be so yeah Villa they do have new ways of playing now whereas before it was it was so obvious how Villa were going to play but they were just doing it so well like Martinez will obviously have his you know studs on the ball and wait for a player to come in and then you've got the extra man and every time I go into Europe and ask a manager about you know the classic what do you expect from Villa and what are your thoughts etc almost every manager says we know exactly what they're going to do but it's about trying to stop them doing it and obviously a lot of them failed but it was so obvious now Villa do have different ways of going about things

I think that's a great point about doing it differently and particularly the distribution and playing quicker and I go back to one of the best two or three Premier League teams I've ever seen was Klopp's Liverpool, who had a way of playing if you gave them the ball in the build-up and Firmino would come into the 10, the full-backs would go out, the two inside forwards would go in.

But there were other days, particularly away from home, where it would just be Alisson would belt it into the channel and Mo Salah and Sadio Mane would just run after it.

And as John said, that just got Liverpool up the pitch and you can see it being the same that when Villa go to, well, they've already been to a couple of tougher away grounds, but even take the Nou Camp next week there might be times when and it was the it was the big problem that let England down in that World Cup semi-finals they had nowhere to go they just kicked the ball and Argentina came back and it's like well if you can just belt it and you've either got big Brian or Nicholas Jackson wanting to have a fight or an Mbaye or someone like that yeah running after it you suddenly get 30 40 50 yards at the pitch quite quickly

And he looks like he fits perfectly well.

And he does manage to create all sorts of problems, both in how he leads the line, a bit like Roberto Firmino used to, and then also in his creative ability for all of those different forwards that Bournemouth seem to be able to throw at you, whether that's Rayan or Marcus Tavernier, or not too distant future, but Junior Kruppi again.

I have Rayan on my list here.

Yeah, look, Bournemouth...

Yeah, I mean, look, you know, I think the only reason we're talking about it is that he's done really well and we're all into him.

We all like him and he is infectious and... you know his energy is transcending or whatever it was Virgil said but we are only 12 appearances into his Liverpool career but we've already got two goals we've already got an assist we've already got him doing Bobby Firmino impressions we've already got him jumping into the crowd and hugging women you know what

I mean another thing as well and this is something that I only really thought about when you were talking before is Remember what we were saying last week and weeks before where you were getting wound up by players doing something and turning to the crowd and kind of doing that and trying to artificially get them to jump up.

Araujo doesn't do that.

I don't think he's going to ever be a super efficient player, but oh well, I'm just looking at, Yeah.

Oh, Firmino recovered.

I'm just looking at Barcelona starting XI.

That's fair enough.