As we all know, there’s an old cliché that, without fail, gets dusted off and broken out each and every year. It’s usually reserved for games during the ‘run-in’ as we approach the end of the season, but it can also appear as early as Christmas (and has done this season – witness the reaction to Arsenal’s 1-0 win at Newcastle a few weeks back). It essentially states that a team which can find a way to collect all three points even when it’s playing shit, or at least at a level below its best, is going to be in the mix come the end of the season for whatever important prizes it covets, whether it’s the League title or, as is surely the goal for Liverpool, a top-four finish.
Now, normally, the type of game that fits this bill is a scrappy 1-0 or 2-0 win, like the aforementioned Arsenal result at St. James Park or the one Manchester City pulled off today at the same ground or the seven 1-0 wins out of fifteen that Manchester United claimed on their way to overhauling a twelve-point deficit in 1995/96. What Liverpool did today was different in style but similar in end-product. The defence was poor, which was as much about the personnel as the system in my view. There was a massive Sakho/Agger sized hole in the back four and I don’t see Stoke scoring three and hitting the post with another if one of them plays. I don’t necessarily mean both of them, because that appears to be something that the manager won’t countenance doing, but either one of them tends to have a terrific calming effect on the defence when he plays. I’ve seen stats going around, for example, of how many Liverpool clean-sheets under Rodgers have had Agger in common, and it’s a high number. Throw in the absence of Enrique/Flanagan (Cissokho wasn’t good), the continued poor form of Johnson and a centre-back in Sktrel whose presence puts no one at ease, and you suddenly have what I believe is termed ‘a dodgy back four’ with a ‘keeper behind it whose confidence looks worryingly shot to fuck having made a poor mistake at Manchester City over Christmas and now another today.
Having said that, good teams, teams that are going places find a way to win, and that’s what Liverpool did today. Most managers, certainly in the case of Houllier, Benítez and the Dalglish/Clarke partnership, concentrate on getting the defence right first, building from the back. There’s even evidence, notwithstanding his team’s attacking play, that this was also Roy Evans’ first priority on taking over from Souness, breaking the British transfer record for a defender by signing Phil Babb (£3.6m) and paying a similarly hefty fee for John Scales, both centre-backs, and switching to three at the back ahead of his first full season in charge. Rodgers’ focus has been completely different. His Liverpool is a team built to pass the ball and score goals first and foremost. That has been his focus from day one. Of the major signings he has made to date, five by my count (Mignolet, Sakho, Touré, Ilori and Cissokho on loan) have been defensive ones while nine (Borini, Allen, Assaidi, Sahin on loan, Coutinho, Sturridge, Alberto, Aspas, Moses on loan) were either attacking players or ones whose remit was to retain possession and give those attackers the platform on which to score goals. The balance has been clear and the results have been impressive – only two teams in the Premier League have scored over fifty goals this season, Liverpool and Manchester City. Last season, only Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal scored more than the Reds, and that was with one fit senior striker for three months...
The injuries to Enrique, Sakho, Agger, Johnson, Touré and Flanagan at various times certainly haven’t helped to maintain cohesiveness in a defensive sense. Throw in the usual concerns about the athleticism, or lack thereof, in Liverpool’s midfield, and you’ve got a recipe for conceding chances and goals. It’s important to remember, though, that he’s only been in the job for little over eighteen months and not everything is going to come together at the same time. Let us also be thankful that he’s done such a fucking good job of creating a team that can score goals at a rate of almost 2.5 per game. Every time I think back to the last title challenge that Liverpool managed, 2008/09, I think about Torres and Gerrard only playing together in fourteen games out of thirty-eight and the paucity of talent available to deputise when one or both were missing. Meanwhile, Carlos Tevez could barely get off the bench for Manchester United. They would have games where they were average at best only for the attacking talents of the Argentine or Ronaldo or Rooney or Berbatov to do just about enough to seal the three points (those players were, of course, also backed by a defence that kept twenty-four clean-sheets out of thirty-eight, a staggering record).
Well what Suárez and Sturridge are doing this season may be even more impressive given that Liverpool are nowhere near as complete a team or squad as that Manchester United vintage. Sturridge’s pass to Suárez for Liverpool’s fourth and the way in which he took his own goal were not just good pieces of skill, they were world-class. Suárez wasn’t just clinical, chasing down three Stoke players and making them figuratively (and hey, who knows, maybe literally too) shit themselves at his mere presence to create something out of nothing for the first and then that first-time finish for the second, he was world-class. Sterling’s rise to the level of first-team regular has also been superb, and if he’s the one to miss out now with the return of Sturridge, then the bench suddenly has a different, more menacing feel to it. For me, the penalty was a foul. There wasn’t much contact but there was contact nonetheless, and with the player rather than the ball. I think Wilson was stupid for having that little nibble at a player who was going nowhere. The real injustice from Stoke’s point of view was the handball before it, but from a Liverpool perspective it’s still three points well-earned and the big story once again is the best strike partnership we’ve had, in my view, since Aldo and Beardsley 25 years ago. Their talent is the difference time and time again between a point or three, or no points at all, and it gives Liverpool a massive edge in the race for the top-four.
