da aposte e ganhe： Having played the full 90 minutes against Manchester City on the 27th December – earning a perfect ten match rating by WhoScored for his performance – Nuno Espirito Santo handed Adama Traore a rest for the trip to Anfield just two days later.
da doce： The former Barcelona attacker began the game against Jurgen Klopp’s European champions on the bench, and was forced to watch on helplessly as his side went 1-0 down to a Sadio Mane goal, before VAR ruled out an equaliser from Pedro Neto just short of half-time.
Eventually, Nuno did bring his exciting No.37 onto the field in the 58th minute, and if you were hoping for a quiet cameo from the rapid 23-year-old, you would’ve been left disappointed.
Adama did so much, in just 32 minutes, that it evidenced how quickly he can make an impact on proceedings.
The £18m man recorded the joint-most dribbles in the game alongside Ruben Vinagre with six, despite playing just over half an hour, bursting into the gaps and driving at Liverpool’s backline almost everytime he got the ball, it seemed.
Amazingly, his six dribbles in 32 minutes of action meant that Adama successfully registered a dribble every 5.3 minutes on average – a truly impressive number.
In addition to that, the man who these Liverpool fans want to see become a Red following his masterclass against Manchester City had one shot and was fouled once, while also contributing defensively with two tackles to his name.
It seems that, even if you keep this maverick on the sidelines for 58 minutes, he can still come on and make a significant impact on proceedings, and also open up gaps for quality players like Pedro Neto and Raul Jimenez to get involved.
It must be a dream for Nuno to have a player whose best traits can be stamped on a match in minutes – in terms of an impact player, Adama’s case for being a very good one was strikingly evident at Anfield on Sunday.
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