As well as declaring a preference for pasta over rice and hip-hop over house, Liverpool’s Adam Lallana revealed his favourite position in a quick-fire interview with the Daily Express.
Lallana answered the poser “out wide or in the middle” with the latter, creating something of a conundrum for his manager Brendan Rodgers in the process.
Up until the recent signing of Roberto Firmino the former Southampton star had been the Anfield club’s second most expensive signing of all time.
Yet, playing him in his preferred role as a number ten would been excommunicating reigning player of the year Philippe Coutinho from the position.
Lallana’s 2014/15 statistics don’t offer much support for such a move, with zero goals and as few assists garnered in four starts as a central attacking midfielder.
In fact playing wide right forward provided his best yield of attacking contributions, with two goals notched in five starts.
He played as a more orthodox central-midfield-three operative just once and there he did put an strong showing, albeit in a 3-1 defeat against Crystal Palace, setting up a goal and completing more than 97% of his passes.
Playing on one flank of a narrow midfield three, as he so often did when making his name at Southampton, may in fact be his best position, but at Anfield he has Jordan Henderson, Emre Can and now James Milner to compete against for minutes.
The latter has moved to Merseyside due to the promise of a central role, so there reason to suspect that Lallana is one of three men competing to flank a defensive operator on the other side of the trident.
Lallana’s hopes of deployment in the middle seem forlorn, while he stands most chance of featuring next season as a wide forward or attacking midfielder.
