Dietmar Hamann has warned Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp he risks messing up his championship-winning formula if he regularly plays summer signing Thiago Alcantara.
The Reds’ Istanbul hero says the Spaniard is a skillful player but plays a completely different style of football, and suggests he isn’t the right fit at Anfield.
And that’s something Hamann warned the Reds about back in September after he was signed from Bayern Munich.
Thiago arrived at Anfield at the start of the season to great fanfare, having just helped Bayern to Champions League glory, and after a bumpy start with injury the midfielder has begun to make regular appearances in the Liverpool team.
However, his return to the line-up has coincided with a dramatic goal drought for the Premier League champions, who have only netted once in their last four league games.
Thiago has played in each of the last three of those matches, where the Reds have failed to find the net at all in a 0-0 draw with Newcastle, 1-0 defeat to Southampton and another goalless stalemate against Manchester United.
A number of pundits, including Anfield legend John Barnes, noted after the draw with United that Thiago has a tendency to slow down Liverpool’s game, taking away the team’s main strength from the past few years which has been their ability to rapidly turn defence into attack.
And Hamann told the talkSPORT Breakfast on Tuesday he has always had doubts about how the former Bayern ace would fit in on Merseyside.
“If you only score one goal in four games, you know there is a problem,” said the former Germany midfielder and 2005 Champions League winning Red.
“The problem in the last few games was going forward. Fabinho has been brilliant in defence, but he’s a loss in midfield as he gives the team good balance and gives the other midfielders and attackers the license and freedom to go forward and enjoy themselves.
“People made a lot of the arrival of Thiago, but a couple of people have said he really slows things down and doesn’t really play the way Liverpool play.
“Liverpool over the past few years have had hard-working midfielders, they are skillful – not as skillful as Thiago – but they gave the ball to Mane and to Salah early, and if those guys get the ball early on the wing and they run at players they are very had to stop, if not impossible to stop.
“I just feel that Thiago… everyone was raving about him coming to Liverpool but he’s hardly played. He played two games, he came on against Chelsea where he had the most passes in the second-half but it was against Chelsea team that was down to ten men, then he came on against Newcastle in the last 25 minutes, Newcastle were dead on their feet and everyone was raving about how good he is.
“I can tell you, he is a good player, he is a skillful player, but there was never a time in Munich where people said, ‘he’s got to be the first name on the team sheet’.
“So I’m very cautious when it comes to Thiago.
“He plays a different style of football. He likes to be in possession, but Liverpool were always good when they were not in possession, and then when they got in possession they played it quickly forward, and he’s not that type of player.
“So I think it’ll be very interesting when he does play more often now how it’s going to change the dynamics of the team.”