Rodgers: Firmino has Sanchez's aggression
Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers says summer signing Roberto Firmino shares a “lot of similarities” with Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez despite their different physical attributes.
Rodgers had sought to sign Sanchez from Barcelona in the summer of 2014 after seeing Luis Suarez move in the opposite direction, but the Chile international preferred a move to London.
Liverpool struggled in Suarez’s absence last season while Sanchez helped Arsenal to third place in the Premier League and success in the FA Cup, and Gunners boss Arsene Wenger — who had tried to sign Suarez in 2013 — recently said the two forwards were “at the same level.”
Wenger had previously suggested that, in common with many South American players, much of Sanchez’s value came through playing street football and learning how to “fight” on the field.
Rodgers, whose Liverpool side travel to the Emirates Stadium on Monday, hopes Brazil international Firmino can inject some of that mental approach into his team.
Asked to compare the former Hoffenheim forward with Sanchez, Rodgers said: “Their profile is different in terms of their physicality. Roberto is more thick-set. Sanchez is a different type and maybe a little bit quicker.
“But both players are aggressive, want to score goals and are both team players so, yes, there are a lot of similarities.”
Firmino, meanwhile, has told the Daily Mirror that he has adapted his game since leaving Brazil for Germany in 2011.
The 23-year-old, who grew up in the town of Maseo, said: “It was a humble family and sometimes dangerous neighbourhood, but I focused only on playing football because I wanted to have a career from my early days, I wanted to have a future and here I am after all of those hard years.”
He added: “I am very proud of being Brazilian but I have completely changed the way I play football because Germany is a tougher, faster game which is more tactical with tighter marking.
“It was a great experience to have a chance to play in Germany for that time but I’m very proud to be a Brazilian player. I consider myself to be half-Brazilian and half-German on the pitch.”
Firmino said his childhood hero had been Ronaldinho and that he also admired former Brazil great Ronaldo.
“It’s hard to be as good as Ronaldinho and Ronaldo were, but we’re going to do our best, both myself and Philippe Coutinho, to get close to them and be the best players we can be for the Brazilian national team,” he said.
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