Joe Cole believes that Roberto Firmino left Paul Dummett not knowing what to do with himself when the Liverpool forward played in Mohamed Salah with a beautiful piece of skill.
Newcastle United let slip of a lead to lose 3-1 against the European champions at Anfield on Saturday with Firmino coming off the bench and pulling the strings in the home side’s attack.
Firmino pulled off a great piece of skill for Salah’s goal to round off the win for Liverpool when he was under pressure from Magpies defender Dummett.
However the Brazilian played so well that Cole claims that Dummett had no idea how to deal with the forward in that moment.
“When [Firmino] did that drag back there, Dummett didn’t know what was going on,” said Cole on BT Sport 1 after the match [02:37pm].
“He didn’t know. He didn’t want to get megged, he didn’t want to fall over.”
Jake Humphrey added: “There were Newcastle players falling over all over the place.”
OPINION
Firmino’s performance against Newcastle is going to be one of the best number nine performances that Steve Bruce’s defence is going to have to deal with all season. The Brazil international was simply on another level once he came off the bench in the first half to replace Divock Origi after the Belgian suffered an injury. Dummett definitely struggled to cope with Firmino but Newcastle really cannot be down-heartened by the result and their performance on Saturday because they came up against a group of players that are in such brilliant form. If anything, the Magpies did really well just to go ahead in the first half when Jetro Willems scored a good goal. A rection from Liverpool was always on the cards and it might not have come until later on if Firmino hadn’t replaced the injured Origi. The important thing about this result is that there were some positives to hold on to.
