Between the pair of them, Robbie Keane and Alan Shearer know a thing or two about playing as a striker.
More specifically, playing with a strike partner in a 4-4-2 formation.
Keane forged one of the Premier League’s most prolific partnerships when he led the line with Dimitar Berbatov during their time at Spurs. Shearer, on the other hand has toed the front line with all sorts of players, from Patrick Kluivert to Shola Ameobi to Craig Bellamy in his Newcastle days.
With Divock Origi and Daniel Sturridge up top for Liverpool against Wolves in third round of the FA Cup on Monday night, the pair were in their analytical elements on BBC, but Shearer and Keane couldn’t have been any more underwhelmed come half-time.
Jurgen Klopp’s men put in a disjointed first half performance against the serial giant killers and trailed by a goal at half-time but nobody was as disappointing as the two men up front.
And Shearer let them have it.
“They have done nothing, playing as individuals, flat no energy, no movement…30 yards apart…I doubt they even have a sweat on their foreheads…They’ve come off that field, barely in a sweat the two of them…”
Keane couldn’t have agreed more with the Premier League’s all-time leading goalscorer and he gave an interesting insight into what they had done wrong, or more pertinently, what they hadn’t done at all.
“As a striker, if you haven’t played with someone in a while, the first thing you want to do is get a bit of combination play going together, get a few touches but they haven’t done that once in the first…I’m not sure they’ve even passed the ball to one another yet…”
“If you get that feel in the first 15/20 minutes, the game will open up, but they’re just not playing together…”
And it continued that way into the second half. The Belgian to his credit, didn’t drop the head and when a half-chance came his way five minutes after the break, he finished it superbly.
☄ | @DivockOrigi slams the ball into the back of the net to draw @LFC level! pic.twitter.com/QLU1bJ7v36
— Emirates FA Cup (@EmiratesFACup) January 7, 2019
But that proved to be just a bolt from the blue with the pairs’ selfish, listless play continuing well into the second half, summed up by Sturridge being taken off on 70 minutes.
In the end, it was a very disappointing evening for Liverpool with Ruben Neves’ long range belter condemning them to a 2-1 defeat and sending them out of the FA Cup.
