With the EFL Cup final upon us, focus turns to who can be the biggest difference makers when Chelsea take on Liverpool at Wembley on Sunday.
One player emerging as one of the chief influences for the Merseyside giants is Thiago Alcantara, who made his 50th appearance for the club in Wednesday's 6-0 thrashing of Leeds United.
He was a certified medal collector at Bayern Munich, and Sunday sees the former Barcelona midfielder's first opportunity to win a trophy with Liverpool. It has not all been a bed of roses for him, though.
A statement of intent
Liverpool were champions of England for the first time in three decades after romping to the Premier League title and had won the Champions League a year earlier.
Then in September 2020, the club announced the signing of Thiago.
The cultured midfielder was fresh off winning a treble of the Bundesliga, DFB Pokal and Champions League with Bayern.
However, doing so seemed like the perfect place to end things after seven years in Bavaria. After all, how could you ever top that?
So, he opted for a new challenge in England.
On his arrival, Thiago made clear his intention to continue adding to his trophy haul at Anfield.
"When the years are passing, you are trying to win as much as you can – and when you win, you want to win more," he told Liverpool's website after his move for a reported fee of £20million (€23.8m).
His debut immediately showed what a difference he could make, as he came on at half-time against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge with the score 0-0, but the hosts reduced to ten men after Andreas Christensen's red card.
In his 45 minutes on the pitch, Thiago completed more passes (75) than any Chelsea player did across the entire game. Two Sadio Mane goals gave Liverpool a win that seemed to suggest they could potentially march to another title in 2020-21, though that would ultimately be far from the case.
After missing nearly a month with COVID-19, his second appearance came in the Merseyside derby at Goodison Park in October where he shone once again, but it was a game that saw Virgil van Dijk suffer a season-ending knee injury.
On top of that, Thiago was on the end of a rash Richarlison challenge. The former Barca man would not play again until December.
He returned when Liverpool were down to the bare bones in defence. Joe Gomez was also out for the season and Joel Matip would not be far behind.
Midfielders Jordan Henderson and Fabinho were regularly having to play at centre-back, meaning Thiago came into an unsettled team that could not stop dropping points.
Liverpool lost nine of the first 21 games in which Thiago featured, including six games in a row at Anfield, while they were dumped out of the FA Cup and Champions League.
Klopp was eventually able to stop the rot by utilising Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams, who performed admirably in defence as Liverpool rescued a third-place finish, but fielding relative rookies at the back completely changed how the Reds played.
Some pundits surmised the player was unsuited to Klopp's high press, high tempo approach, but quite simply, Liverpool were not playing Klopp's football during the second half of last season. As seen since the return of Van Dijk and Matip, as well as the addition of Ibrahima Konate from RB Leipzig, he needs a certain grade of centre-back to be able to do that.
Thiago came into his second season looking forward to playing in a team with its regular spine for the first time since that fateful game at Goodison Park, and on the occasions where he has been able to, he has shown just why he is rated so highly.
He scored a stunning goal against Porto in the Champions League group stage, hitting the ball from range with such delicate precision that it seemed to glide an inch off the ground all the way from his foot until it nestled in the corner of the Kop-end net.
Thiago is not a goalscorer though, or even much of a goal creator, directly anyway. In his 235 appearances for Bayern he scored just 31 goals and provided 35 assists, while so far in England he has three goals and one assist in his 50 outings.
However, he is clearly making a difference to the 2021-22 iteration of Liverpool.
Thiago has missed 20 games this season either through injury or COVID-19, and Liverpool have played 28 fixtures in all competitions without him in their starting XI.
Of those, they have won 18 (64.3 per cent), drawn eight and lost two, with an average of 2.5 goals for per game, and one goal against.
Yet Liverpool have won all 12 matches in which Thiago has started, with an average of 2.9 goals for per game, and just 0.2 goals against.
A prime example of his increasing influence came against Norwich City. Thiago was introduced in the 62nd minute with his team 1-0 down. Five minutes later, Liverpool were 2-1 up.
Only six of Liverpool's starters attempted more than his 48 passes despite his short time on the pitch, and Thiago completed 45 (93.8 per cent). Of those passes, 34 were in Norwich's half.
Thiago carried that form on in the rout of Leeds, completing 52 of his 56 passes (92.9 per cent, the highest in the game, but he also showed another side to of his ability, making four tackles, twice as many as the next most from a team-mate (Fabinho), before being substituted in the 68th minute.
Keeping him fit is the big challenge, but should he be able to do so, Klopp potentially now has the depth to challenge on all fronts.
With a quadruple still in the offing, having Thiago available could be the difference between success and failure in multiple competitions for
Who knows? If Liverpool overcome Chelsea on Sunday and win the EFL Cup for a record ninth time, perhaps he can even eclipse that sensational final season at Bayern after all.
Juventus hit back from two goals down to salvage a draw at Cagliari
Juventus fought back from two down to salvage a 2-2 draw at Cagliari but the result did little to dispel speculation over the future of manager Massimiliano Allegri.
Allegri has faced heightened scrutiny over his long-term prospects at the Turin club after a poor run of form.
The Old Lady hit the Serie A summit in January but have struggled for victories in recent months and almost suffered a painful defeat to old boss Claudio Ranieri.
Cagliari raced into a two-goal lead after they were awarded two first-half penalties, which Gianluca Gaetano and Yerry Mina dispatched.
However, Ranieri was denied a victory as Dusan Vlahovic pulled one back before Alberto Dossena put through his own net with three minutes left to leave Juventus in third position with Bologna and Roma breathing down their neck after winning only two of their last 12 league matches.
Allegri made two changes in an attempt to arrest Juve’s stuttering form with Carlos Alcaraz and Timothy Weah handed starting opportunities.
It failed to have the desired impact with Cagliari able to quickly take control of the contest with away stopper Wojciech Szczesny the busier of the two goalkeepers.
After a strong start, the hosts were rewarded with the chance to go ahead on the half an hour mark when Bremer was penalised for handball after a header by Dossena.
Gaetano fired into the bottom corner from 12yards but not long after the celebrations had finished at Stadio Unipol Domus the hosts were awarded a second spot-kick.
Szczesny was the guilty party on this occasion after he brought down Zito Luvumbo and received a caution for his foul. Former Everton defender Mina stepped up and sent Szczesny the wrong way to spark jubilant celebrations in Sardinia.
Juventus did have the ball in the net before half-time, but Vlahovic’s tap-in was ruled out for offside and the deficit remained at two.
Kenan Yildiz was sent on by Allegri for the second half and the visitors did pull one back in the 61st minute.
Federico Chiesa and Vlahovic stood over a free-kick and the latter curled a delivery around the wall for his 17th goal of the season.
It provided hope for Juve and the next roll of the dice by Allegri was the introduce Weston McKennie and Arkadiusz Milik.
Juve upped the ante during the final exchanges but when Vlahovic volleyed over from close range, it looked like time might run out.
However, Allegri’s side found an equaliser with three minutes left when Dossena put the ball into his own net after a dangerous cross by Yildiz.
Yildiz almost produced a stoppage-time winner too but fired straight at Simone Scuffer late on as the points were shared.
Oxford frustrated in play-off push as Stevenage force draw
Oxford squandered a great opportunity to strengthen their bid to reach the play-offs when they could only manage a 1-1 draw at home to Stevenage.
It leaves them in sixth place in Sky Bet League One, three points ahead of Lincoln, who have a game in hand and superior goal difference.
Stevenage, who lost manager Steve Evans to Rotherham this week, held out for a point despite not having a shot on target – they scored through an own goal – and being under constant pressure.
Stevenage took the lead against the run of play in the 32nd minute when defender Sam Long, pressured by Kane Hemmings behind him, turned Nick Freeman’s left-wing cross into his own net.
The U’s felt they should have had a penalty when Ruben Rodrigues threaded a pass through to Marcus Browne, who looked to be fouled by goalkeeper Craig MacGillivray in a race to reach the ball.
But referee Tom Nield ignored Oxford’s appeals for a spot-kick.
They were awarded one in the 58th minute, though, when Carl Piergianni brought down Rodrigues on the edge of the box after the Portuguese forward got goalside of him. Cameron Brannagan converted.
The home side dominated the first half, with MacGillivray saving Rodrigues’s fierce drive, Long glancing a header just wide at a corner, and Mark Harris nodding wide from a good position.
The second half saw much of the same, MacGillivray saving from Finn Stevens and from Josh Murphy when he raced through.
Stevenage nearly won it late on as Long cleared off the line and then a shot was deflected off a defender and against a post.
Raith Rovers keep unlikely title bid alive with narrow victory at Inverness
Raith Rovers rode their luck to keep alive their slender cinch Championship title hopes with a smash-and-grab 1-0 win at third-bottom Inverness.
Caley Thistle, looking for a third successive win to further boost their survival push, hit the goal frame four times and saw visiting goalkeeper Kevin Dabrowski produce a host of stunning saves.
But in the end it was Lewis Vaughan’s 49th-minute strike that settled the contest as Raith, who could have seen leaders Dundee United win the league on Saturday if they had lost at Caledonian Stadium, close the gap on the pacesetters to three points.
Duncan Ferguson’s Inverness created several good chances to take the lead in a one-sided first half, with Dabrowski keeping out Cammy Harper’s 25-yard free-kick before Alex Samuel was denied by a goalline block.
The hosts came even closer in the 21st minute when Harper fired against the bar and then saw Dabrowski fling up a leg and somehow manage to block his follow-up.
Rovers had done little to prove they were the team at the top end of the able in the first half but four minutes after the restart they took the lead, top scorer Vaughan getting on the end of a flick-on to coolly guide the ball past Mark Ridgers.
That proved to be the game’s decisive moment as the Raith goal continued to lead a charmed life, Samuel seeing a curling shot come back off the far post and the brilliant Dabrowski turned over a shot from the same player.
Inverness then hit the crossbar twice in quick succession, Danny Devine and James Carragher seeing headers come back off the goal frame, before Dabrowski tipped over a stoppage-time effort as Raith somehow held on for the three points.
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