Fabinho

Fabinho
Image from: freelargeimages.com

Fabio Henrique Tavares





Current Club: Liverpool.

Previous Clubs: AS Monaco, Rio Ave.

Loan Clubs: AS Monaco, Real Madrid Castilla.





International: Brazil 4 caps.

Trophies Won: French Ligue 1 2016/17.





Fabinho is one of those players who seems to glide over the ground at times, though at others he is more reminiscent in movement of N'Zonzi. He moved to Europe as a right back, but he has spent the last couple of seasons playing in central midfield, due to AS Monaco being short of players there initially, but his performances saw him settle down in there. One of the main features of his player at full-back was his ability on the ball and that has stood him in good stead in midfield.



On the plus side, he has a good range of passing, very good on the ball, decent vision to spot runs and has very good positional sense when defending. On the negative, Fabinho likes his forward runs and can be very slow to get back into defensive areas afterwards. That could be a genuine problem if he is the deepest midfielder and a high press is applied. If he gets caught upfield and is not busting a gut to get back, it will expose the defence, if the one deep system is employed. Someone will need to be alert to cover for him, something you would hope would be obvious to the players, but might take time for them to realise early in his Liverpool career.



His pace is good, he has a stride that eats up the ground very quickly, without looking like he is going fast until you see him next to another player who is visibly sprinting. It seems effortless to him. That can also give him an advantage a lot of the time, players look up and see Fabinho coming towards them and misjudge the speed he is actually moving at, meaning they can get caught on the ball or beaten to a loose one. He is deceptively quick.



With a height of over 6ft, Fabinho is also useful in the air, a big help on set pieces at either end of the pitch. Despite playing a mainly defensive role, he has also scored a decent amount of goals in recent seasons, something that is always useful to have in the side. It is very surprising, when you see him play and look at his stats, that he has been left out of the Brazil side that went to Russia this summer. It looks even more of a mistake with Danilo missing out and Fagner looking the weak link of the side. His versatility is something that is a major plus to his game.



Fabinho has shown a real improvement in his game over the last couple of seasons, and his attitude has been excellent, despite twice being let down by Monaco over a move away. While many players sulk and let themselves, their team-mates and the fans down when they are promised a move and let down once, Fabinho had it happen twice and just put his head down and got on with it. He continued to work hard at learning the midfield role and become a better player. Saido Berahino take note!



Requested by Livebird31 and praveenlfc