Fabinho has been patiently waiting for his chance at Liverpool since his £44 million arrival from AS Monaco.
The Brazilian was kept on the sidelines for much of the early-going, as he assimilated to British life and football.
Named in the starting XI for the clash with Red Star Belgrade however, Fabinho delivered a superb performance, one sure to indicate to manager Jürgen Klopp that he belongs on the team sheet.
Of Fabinho (who turned 24 yesterday), Team Talk quote Klopp as saying:
The present for his birthday was not that he was in the line-up, it was that we played his favourite system and it was really good. Very aggressive, everything was there. It’s quite impressive what people saw tonight. That was the start, now let’s carry on
It was just a good football game and they could finish the situations because we had the right movement in the right moment, we had the right passes, we had the right formation.
Fabinho will now have to wait to see if his chance against Red Star was a one off, or if the German boss is ready to trust him week in, week out.
A 4-0 victory for the Reds was reflective of the balance of play on the night, and Klopp will have been happy to see his players show more composure in front of goal.
Klopp went on to say:
You cannot win a game 4-0 if most of the things are not really good and tonight most of the things were really good.
