After much talk and speculation, it has been confirmed that Joe Allen has completed a move to Stoke City for a reported fee of £13m.
This may come to the dismay of many Liverpool fans as Allen has become a cult-hero of sorts during the past 12 months. Putting in impressive performances from midfield and scoring vital goals in crucial games; such as the 3-3 draw against Arsenal and the deciding penalty against his new club in the Capital One Cup.
He was even selected in the Euro 2016 Team of the Tournament during Wales’ remarkable run to the semi-final.
Despite all of this, Allen only made 30 appearances in a 63 game season for Liverpool. It looked as if Jurgen Klopp didn’t quite fancy him as one of his midfield options, and I believe he was right not to keep Allen.
Let me take this chance to say that I like Joe Allen. I think he’s a very good technical player whose passing ability is better than most would give him credit for. He’s a decent tackler and doesn’t get bullied off of the ball often for his size. That therein lies one of the problems however, size.
Liverpool have been quietly busy in the transfer market, having already made seven signings for the new season, the majority of these signings have one thing in common; height. Something Allen unfortunately lacks.
Klopp made no secret of the fact that Liverpool have been poor at set-pieces both in offence and defence. This is clearly something he looked to rectify by adding more height to the squad. Joel Matip (1.95m), Marko Grujic (1.90m), and Ragnar Klavan (1.86m) are all significantly taller than Allen at 1.68m. He just doesn’t pose the same threat in the box.
Even Jordan Henderson and Emre Can, who aren’t exactly the tallest, are taller than Allen at 1.82m and 1.84m respectively. Therefore they have an advantage over him for those midfield positions too.
An additional issue is end product. For as well as Allen played, especially in the Europa League run to the final, he only scored three goals from midfield all season. In order to compete at the very top level, Liverpool need goals from midfield, something we’ve sorely lacked since the turn of the decade.
Allen isn’t alone in this, Can and Henderson have also failed to add goals to their game. This helps explain why Georginio Wijnaldum was brought in to the squad after scoring 11 goals in the league from a pretty dismal Newcastle team. Klopp wanted goals, he bought goals.
Finishing has never really been Allen’s game and as a result, he’s found himself even lower down the pecking order. Klopp is likely to play a 4-2-3-1 as a base formation for the majority of the season. With Can, Henderson, Wijnaldum, Milner and Grujic all vying for two central midfield positions, Allen was going to find first-team action hard to come by with no European football next season.
Ever since Allen was brought to Liverpool, he never really got going. Being dubbed the ‘Welsh Xavi’ upon arrival certainly didn’t help and many supporters will always make him synonymous with the Brendan Rodgers era.
As much as I liked Allen, it wasn’t enough for me to be disappointed with his departure. It was admirable of him to leave Liverpool in search of first team football, something I have no doubt he’ll get that at Stoke week in, week out.
Allen has the qualities to succeed, just not for Klopp and not for Liverpool.
