At 29 years of age, Thiago Alcantara can rightly be said to be in his prime as a footballer, and to that end, Liverpool look like they’ve worked the transfer market to perfection once again.
Coming off of the back of a treble-winning season with Bayern Munich, it says a lot about Thiago’s character that he looked for a new and exciting challenge rather than stay in Germany and continue to dominate domestically and, potentially, in Europe.
An impressive cameo on his debut for the Reds will have left the club’s supporters begging for more, albeit a positive Covid-19 test has sidelined him until the back end of next week.
Intriguingly, Tifo Football have suggested that Thiago will only ever be a plan B for Jurgen Klopp.
Their analysis of his signing centres around the fact that they believe he is a midfielder who is less functional than others, but much better at playing line-breaking passes to open opposition teams up.
If the usual way of working isn’t being as successful as Klopp would like, at least with Thiago in situ, he can unbalance other teams by switching the focus.
Whether that means his role will be one of an impact sub or otherwise will only be found out in due course.