The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Sport Saturday
Gumshield-loving Endo helps give Mac Allister bite
Wataru Endo has become Liverpool defenders’ ultimate protective shield. Or perhaps “gumshield” would be more appropriate. The Japan international looks like he is ready for 12 rounds in the boxing ring rather than a football match, a quirk that has endeared him to the Kop during a brilliant run.
“When I was in Germany, I met a Japanese dentist; he told me it’s a good mouthpiece, it makes something different about performance,” Endo told Sky Sports recently. “Now I just wear it to protect my teeth and also it looks like a fighter, so on the pitch I put the mouthpiece in and it’s like game mode.”
The 31-year- old, rested against Sheffield United on Thursday, should be back for the scrap with Manchester United tomorrow as another emblem of the contrasting recruitment of clubs who have gone in different directions. It seems a lifetime ago since United played Liverpool with Casemiro, their highly decorated midfielder, being regarded in some quarters as the key to Erik ten Hag leading his club back into the top four, while Jurgen Klopp prepared for Champions League exile as time caught up with Fabinho, Jordan Henderson and James Milner.
Casemiro cost £70 million, and it is unlikely he accepted a salary cut from the excess of £ 200,000 a week he was earning at Real Madrid. Endo was unfashionably cheaper at £18 million on a contract that is most likely less than half of his United counterpart. Both are in their early thirties, but while Endo’s performances this season have reenergised Liverpool’s midfield, there is a feeling Casemiro’s best is behind him.
If Alexis Mac Allister was the perfect farewell gift of Liverpool’s former sporting director Julian Ward, Endo was a eureka moment for Jorg Schmadtke. He was employed to cover only two transfer windows, and his arrival was gre e t ed with some suspicion during what history will record as Michael Edwards’s two- year Anfield sabbatical. But Schmadtke’s knowledge of the Bundesliga ensured he and Klopp recognised what few other elite clubs did when watching Endo in Stuttgart’s midfield for the past three years.
As Klopp has since acknowledged, there was luck involved in Liverpool moving for the Japan captain, as they spent most of last summer trying to lure Romeo Lavia before offering a startling £111 million for Moises Caicedo. The fact so many clubs were looking for a No 6 served only to increase cynicism about how good Endo might be.
“The owners want a 20-year-old who has played 200 games,” Klopp admitted upon completing the deal. “I know people are asking why no one signed him [Endo] before.”
Given this cynicism, it is no coincidence that Klopp welcomed Endo with the most effusive praise ever bestowed on one of his signings, revealing an assortment of congratulatory text messages from his German friends for a “genius” move.
Despite an inauspicious start, Klopp has been vindicated. But while the energy and terrier-like retrieval of possession are obvious stand- out qualities, it is the influence on those around Endo that has had the most profound impact on Liverpool’s season, especially midfield partner Mac Allister.
As Endo was adapting to Klopp’s system and Mac Allister was the defensive No 6, the Argentine registered no goals, one assist and five shots in his first 11 Premier League games. Since Endo established himself – he has missed only four of the past 19 league games – Mac Allister has four goals, four assists and 24 shots, his talent unleashed in a perfectly balanced midfield. Endo and Mac Allister are in the midst of an almighty fight for the status of Liverpool’s bargain of the season. No wonder Endo keeps wearing that gumshield.