2017/18 Season Report Card: Adam Lallana

What a complete waste of a year that was for Lallana. A pre-season injury kept him out until November when he was brought back too soon and had a setback. He came back again but then got injured minutes after coming on as a sub and basically missed the rest of the season.

Jurgen said a few times over the year that it was incredible how well his team had done considering they’d been without a player as good as Lallana for the whole campaign. Lallana has always been a bit of a ‘teachers pet’ but think about how important he was last season and you can see where Klopp is coming from.

Lallana's ability to run ahead of his front players and break the lines was a big weapon for us last season, and other than Ox we didn't really have anyone else doing that this year. We missed him, but we're almost used to playing without him now and he's becoming an afterthought.

I’m a big fan of Lallana, he’s one of my favourite players. I love watching him as his style is so easy on the eye. His touch, balance and grace on the ball is just something else and nobody else at the club can match it. I love his work rate and pressing too, but none of it really counts for anything when he’s injured all the time.

He’s such a good player, but I don’t ever want to see him playing in the front three again as he can’t do it. He doesn’t have the pace to get away from anyone and therefore slows everything down. When he replaced Mo in the final it killed us. Partly because he wasn’t fully fit but also because he’s shit in the front three.

As a box to box midfielder I think he’s great, he’s one of our best players, but the probably is we can no longer rely on him and he’s entered Daniel Sturridge territory now when it comes to availability. A massive shame, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that Klopp’s all action style is too much for Lallana’s body to deal with.

Best Moment: 
 
Conning a penalty out of the ref against Everton.

Worst Moment: 
 

Coming on as a sub and getting injured within minutes at Burnley. A real choker that was.
 
Rating:
 
N/R. Can’t give him a rating when he hardly played.
 

The Future? 

Difficult one this. A lot depends on whether Klopp still trusts him to be able to stay fit. If his fitness could be guaranteed there’s no way we should even think about selling him, but it can’t be guaranteed and he’s become somewhat injury prone.

They aren’t impact injuries either, or ones that can be put down to bad luck. Like Sturridge, his injuries are always muscular which points to a wider problem. I don’t think he’ll be sold this summer but then it depends if any good offers come in. He’s on £100k a week and he’s 30 now, so any decent offer needs to be considered.

I’d lean towards him being kept around because Ox is out until November. Come January though he might find himself surplus to requirements if he misses any more time through injury.