Adam Lallana Working To Increase Speed, Win Trophies With Liverpool

Speed kills on the soccer field, so Adam Lallana is trying to become a little more lethal.

Lallana recently reflected on his rise as a professional, telling NBC about his goals for his first season at Anfield, which he thinks he can achieve through hard work in the gym.

“Pace isn’t a huge part of my game now, but playing the percentages, mathematically, if you can add an extra yard of pace or a couple of percentage points to your game, then that’s massive nowadays,” Lallana said earlier this month. “So I still do a lot of work in the gym to improve my pace, power, strength to try and get that little bit more explosive power to my game. I’m always working to improve.”

Lallana joined Liverpool last summer in a £25 million ($40 million) transfer from Southampton. The work of Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has impressed Lallana in the early months of his Anfield career.

“Working for Brendan Rodgers has been brilliant,” Lallana said. “He’s a great manager, he’s very hands on. Works very much with the players, and his man-management skills are good. He even speaks Spanish to a lot of the lads who can’t speak English. He’s tactically clever and sees things. And he always wants to improve. He’s always watching games, looking to tweak things different. He’s a very, very clever manager.”

Lallana has scored one goal in his first 12 games for Liverpool. He hopes to adapt to life at Liverpool and help the club reach its goals for 2014-15.

“My aim for this season is to settle in as well as I can to the group and contribute as much as possible to getting into the top four again,” Lallana said, according to LiverpoolFC.com. “And hopefully win a bit of silverware. We feel that if we keep working hard, a really good performance is around the corner.”