sport news DOMINIC KING: Roberto Firmino will leave Liverpool a legend after winning all ... trends now
The news felt inevitable but that doesn’t stop it from being significant: Roberto Firmino is to leave Liverpool and that devastating trident is down will be down to one prong.
Firmino, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane were the reason that Jurgen Klopp’s restoration of Liverpool was able to have such fantastic results. For five years, from 2017, they were Europe’s finest front three, scoring or assisting 399 of the 611 goals they plundered in that period.
It is an extraordinary statistic and while Mane and Salah did the lion’s share of the finishing, Firmino’s importance must never be understated. In the two years he spent at Hoffenheim before coming to Merseyside, Neymar was the only Brazilian in Europe who was more productive.
They sing on The Kop about Firmino being “the best in the world” and in terms of the job he did for Klopp, nobody was better. When Klopp arrived at Anfield in October 2015, he couldn’t believe his good fortune to find a forward he had watched blossom at Hoffenheim.
‘I remember when Jurgen came in during his early days,’ Ian Ayre, Liverpool’s former Chief Executive, once told Sportsmail. ‘He said: “What a player! I can’t believe you got him!” He was very, very complimentary. He has been an incredible buy – someone out of the very top drawer.’
Roberto Firmino will leave Liverpool when his contract expires in the summer
Manager Jurgen Klopp wanted the Brazil international to stay but Firmino feels it is time to go
That he has. Ayre was central to Firmino’s transfer – he vividly remembers the frantic journey that involved four flights, three countries and two hemispheres over two days to conclude negotiations at the 2015 Copa America in Chile – and it goes down as one of the club’s best in the modern era.
He was rather unheralded and many wondered what £29million would get Liverpool eight years ago but respected scouts Dave Fallows and Barry Hunter had put hours into studying him and talks with Hoffenheim were effectively carried out in secret so as Firmino would not get distracted.
‘There could have been a problem (in Chile) as the Brazilian FA were running a closed camp and not allowing anyone in to see their squad,’ Ayre added. ‘But we were really lucky as Dunga, their then manager, agreed to let Roberto leave the team hotel and meet me for an hour with
