He played lousy against West Ham, but this Liverpool player will be called up for the World Cup

Joe Gomez's game is like a rollercoaster. There are games where he plays exceptionally well, like against Manchester City, but there are others where he looks like an amateur, like against West Ham where he could have been at fault for a Hammers goal that would have cost the Reds victory at Anfield. That's why the Brazilian goalkeeper Alisson was the star with several spectacular saves, but he can't do everything. 

England national team coach, Gareth Southgate has always remained a fan of Gomez’s talent and temperament and would not take much persuading to recall him if the 25-year-old can keep his Liverpool place and play well. With the possibility of Southgate needing to use Trent Alexander-Arnold as a right wing-back in Qatar, Gomez’s club chemistry with his Liverpool team-mate may also work in his favour.

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Southgate was impressed with Liverpool's match against Manchester City. Van Dijk and Joe Gomez's timing was impeccable and their reading of the game was as they had planned. The instructions were clear ("you have to stop the ball getting to him") and with a couple of excellent interventions they were also able to prevent the ball from reaching Kevin De Bruyne, Haaland's best partner. The Reds' centre-backs made a total of 15 recoveries (one of them in the opposition half) and only committed two fouls in the entire match.

The only 'but' you can find for Joe Gomez in that match was the aerial contests, something you can count on when facing the Norwegian giant. Haaland was brilliant in that aspect of the game with 4 out of 4 duels won (Van Dijk signed 0 out of 1 and Joe Gomez 1 out of 5). On the other hand, their contests on the ground were reduced to 43% (3 out of 7), which explains perfectly the good work of the Liverpool defence.

<strong>Joe Gomez played very poorly against West Ham </strong>

But for Tuesday's game at Anfield against West Ham, Gomez was once again that inaccurate player with a lot of hesitation when defending. In fact, he was the lowest rated of all Liverpool players with a 6.9. He committed a penalty, won only one ground duel against the Hammers' attackers and could barely win three aerial duels during the whole game, and his passes were almost always wrong.