Anyone who watched reality TV series ‘Being: Liverpool’ would probably have seen the moment when Brendan Rodgers welcomed one of his former Swansea players to Anfield.
The cameras had documented the lead up to Joe Allen’s impending arrival for £19 million but they also captured the moment where Rodgers described him as the “Welsh Xavi”.
Perhaps it was a throwaway comment or maybe Rodgers truly meant it. But he seems to have changed tack recently.
Allen was a regular starter earlier in the season, but he has been restricted to substitute appearances since his last Premier League start against Manchester United on January 13th.
While the Wales international has been warming on the bench, Liverpool have earned creditable away draws at Manchester City and Arsenal, along with 5 – 0 home wins over Norwich and Swansea with the only league blip coming against West Brom.
Those results also had something to do with Daniel Sturridge’s introduction at the point of the attack but it also relates to increased pragmatism in the centre of midfield where Steven Gerrard, Jordan Henderson and Lucas provide the industry.
Allen was brought in to provide composure on the ball, keep play ticking over and dominate possession in the middle of the park. It had worked at Swansea the previous season but he had players with a similar mentality around him, for example Leon Britton.
He has certainly been tidy on the ball this season with a passing accuracy rate of about 90 per cent. But he seems to offer little else. He lacks tenacity defensively, completing just two-thirds of his tackles – the lowest of Liverpool’s central midfielders.
"Reverse sheepdog"
Conversely, he has also failed to provide an outlet offensively. He has had no shots on target, no successful crosses, no assists and has created less than one chance per game.
That is what makes the comparison to Xavi sound ludicrous.
Xavi and Allen are of similar stature but there is a huge difference in substance. While both are excellent passers, the Barcelona man does not spray passes for the sake of it.
Graham Hunter, a regular contributor on Newstalk Sport and Off The Ball, put it best in a chapter focused on the player nicknamed Maqi (the Machine) in his excellent book ‘Barca: The Making of the greatest team in the world’:
“Perpetual motion. His passes come off an incessant production line. He’s always prompting and prodding his team-mates into movement and into situations where they can damage the opposition.”
Hunter goes on to describe Xavi’s style as the “reverse-sheepdog” as he forces his team-mates to scatter and find pockets of space.
Of course, you cannot really compare one of the greatest midfielders of all time to a 22-year-old who has been transplanted into an engine room where tiki taka does not come naturally. But you do not get the sense that Allen is the type of player who will go on to dominate matches in the way that Xavi has managed to do over the last decade.
