He may continue to a divisive figure among the Liverpool support, but on the back of a pair of goals from Christian Benteke, the Anfield outfit head in to the New Year with back to back wins after overcoming both Leicester City and Sunderland within the span of five days.
“I came to Liverpool to try to score lots of goals. I’m in good shape and hopefully I can keep it up,” Benteke told Sky Sports following the final whistle. “As a striker, when you start you have to score and help your team-mates,” explained the 26-year old, making reference to a conversation he had with boss Jurgen Klopp earlier in the week in which he was told he needs to work harder for the team. “That’s what I tried to do tonight and we won and we can be happy.”
With the likes of Divock Origi, Danny Ings and Daniel Sturridge all sidelined, Benteke is the Reds only fit senior striker at the moment and though he’s been on target for two matches on the hop, his overall game continues to be criticized with former Reds defender turned pundit Jamie Carragher one of many voices in a the chorus.
“He gives Klopp a problem in that he is the one goalscorer they have, excluding [Daniel] Sturridge, who you can’t bank on because he has been out so much,” he said on Sky Sports. “But Klopp said when he got the winner against Leicester that if you have a player like Benteke who scores the winning goal, as he did tonight, that’s one action in 90 minutes, what does he do in the other 89 minutes? He wants more from him, more movement, but the problem is nobody else in the squad scores goals,” continued Carragher. “It’s Liverpool’s problem how they use him and get the best from him. With a powerful centre-forward you have to get the ball into his feet.”
