880 days. That is the amount of time Adam Lallana waited to score his most recent Liverpool goal, the late equaliser in the Reds' only non-victory this Premier League season away at Manchester United, after previously finding the net against Middlesbrough in May 2017.
In his first three seasons with the Reds, Lallana scored 22 times in all competitions. In the past three campaigns, he has only scored once. His appearance numbers per season have more than halved too, through a combination of persistent injuries and incoming transfers knocking him down the midfield pecking order. Some supporters have been quick to criticise his output in recent season,using the raw numbers as evidence he hasn't been pulling his weight.
But rather than reducing in influence, Lallana's role has actually shape-shifted over time, as his skill-set has been married to different positions to suit the changing needs of the Liverpool system at different times. Lallana has by no means become a less effective player for Liverpool his role in the squad has totally changed instead.
Now, six years after his arrival at Liverpool, Lallana is set to leave the club on a free transfer at the expiration of his contract in June, and Leicester City have apparently made an early move to secure his services.
What that means is that Jrgen Klopp has some very interesting, and difficult, questions to answer when considering how to replace Lallana in his squad this summer.
The Adam Lallana that signed for Liverpool in 2014 is very different to the ones the Reds will be losing in 2020. In his first season with the club, Lallana made 39 appearances in all competitions, 22 from attacking midfield and 16 on both wings. He matched those kinds of numbers in the following campaign too, before playing 20 of his 32 matches in central midfield in 2016/17, Klopp's first full campaign in charge. The transition further and further towards his own goal has been completed this season, with the majority of Lallana's start coming as the deep-lying no. 6 in Klopp's midfield.
The effect the backwards movement has had on Lallana's output is striking. Below are some of his numbers from the 2017/18 season.
Here are the ones from 2019/20 so far for comparison.
The data highlights Lallana's greatly reduced influence in attacking areas, while also demonstrating the much stronger impact he has on matches in a defensive sense. Between these seasons, Lallana has entirely transformed his game in order to suit what Klopp felt he needed he required in the squad, and has managed to do so very well. His success in becoming the 'Jorginho-style' player Klopp wanted him to become last pre-season, which was scoffed at by plenty of fans pundits alike, it testament to both his adaptability and his determination to make significant contributions to this Liverpool team, even at the cost of his own way of playing.
When Liverpool come to plan how to deal with his departure, then, they will need to decide whether they are replacing the Lallana of old, or this season's transformed version.
Liverpool will need to find a way to allow Curtis Jones more regular playing time next season, with the 19-year-old's very impressive technical ability, leadership quality and strong understanding of Klopp's system suggesting he can progress very quickly as part of the first-team squad rather than a loan move being necessary. Jones is best harnessed either as the most advanced player in a midfield three on the left wing, though, meaning he would have represented an astute replacement for 2014-2016 Lallana, but not the one who is leaving a hole in Liverpool's squad now.
Pedro Chirivella has impressed in the no. 6 role in domestic cup outings this season, with his performances against Everton and Shrewsbury at Anfield in particular drawing praise. The Spaniard will be 23 by the end of the season, however, and doesn't seem to have developed to the level required in order to play at the base of the Liverpool midfield on a regular basis.
Marko Grujic, somehow, still remains a Liverpool player, despite spending the past two years on loan at Hertha Berlin. The Serbian has played almost all of his 21 Hertha matches this season as a central midfielder, with a handful of starts as a defensive midfielder too. In terms of position, then, Grujic could be realistically thought of as an easy and cost-effective replacement in Klopp's squad. At 6ft 4in, though, Grujic's playing style is vastly different to Lallana's despite operating in similar areas of the patch. Where Lallana is nimble and able to turn in tight spaces while moving the ball quickly, Grujic is aggressive and likes to carry the ball forward. Klopp tried a player with similar qualities at the base of his midfield in Emre Can, and the results were mixed at best.
Leciester City are now one of Liverpool's major rivals make no mistake about that. With Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur all in varying levels of disarray, Leicester have built a squad that is talented and tactically astute, under the tutelage of a better manager than any of those former title challengers currently employs. With Manchester City's future clouded by their Champions League ban, Leicester could well become the Reds' biggest contenders in the short-term future.
With that in mind, Liverpool will be disappointed if Lallana does opt to re-join Rodgers in the Midlands. Since Klopp's arrival, Liverpool have sold few players to direct competitors in England or Europe, with Philippe Coutinho and Emre Can's respective moves to Barcelona and Juventus the two major exceptions. Of course, the club has no jurisdiction on where Lallana moves, but Leicester would represent a change that could come back to hurt Liverpool.
The move itself seems quite peculiar. Obviously, Lallana is a good player, Leicester are a good team, and player and manager know they can work well together. But Lallana is seeking guarantees about consistent first-team football, and with Leicester's midfield well-stocked with an array of very talented technical players who are younger than him, he may well find himself starting a not too dissimilar amount of matches at the King Power as he has been at Anfield.
It is extremely unlikely that Liverpool will make an offer of their own to keep Lallana at the club, but if he ends up turning Leicester down and joining a a side which does not directly compete with the Reds, then the loss will be far easier to take.
