Roberto Firmino is rubbish and so was Dennis Bergkamp

There’s a mad argument going around social media that Liverpool star Roberto Firmino is no good, but if that’s true then Dennis Bergkamp was rubbish too.

Football Twitter is a pretty poisonous place at the best of times but this lockdown has put everything under a magnifying glass and it’s not pretty.

Liverpool seem to be one of the main targets, which makes sense because everybody hates on the top dogs at the time.

Being 25 points clear of second place tends to do that.

But if you can’t attack the side, the next best thing would be to go after the players that make the side so good. This is where Roberto Firmino gets the brunt of the abuse.

It normally centres around his goal scoring record, which isn’t great and definitely could be better. This isn’t a dig at Bobby, we all know it could be, but that ignores a large part of what he is good at.

At a very base level, there’s no way Jurgen Klopp would regularly pick someone to play in his front three who wasn’t a good player.

Do you think a manager who was building an empire with a team that had reached two Champions League finals in two years while winning won – as well as smashing the league – would tolerate mediocrity?

No chance.

Criticising Firmino for his lack of goals, and curiously this seems to come from Arsenal fans, is like saying Dennis Bergkamp was rubbish because he didn’t score enough either.

Out of everyone alive, Gunners should know that a goal record doesn’t make or break players in the mould of those two. The way Bobby players, pulling defenders with him, dropping deep, drifting around, and the skill he brings to the team are vital ingredients in Klopp’s recipe.

We all know he could be more clinical, but he still pops up at important moments with excellent finishes.

Goals record is attractive because it allows people without a clue what’s going on to sound knowledgeable. It’s the Twitter ignorati’s favourite blunt object.

But it works both ways, too.