The improvements are incremental but steady; that’ll do for me. We were still coming down from yesterday’s roller-coaster victory as Eden Hazard’s screamer was hitting the back of the Old Trafford net and guiding Chelsea back into their FA Cup tie against Manchester United. Hazard cost £35m and, aside from leaving a ball-boy fighting for his life last month (that’s what I heard, anyway
), he’s been doing little enough of late. Still, he’s a £35m player on merit, and Chelsea were able to call on him at 0-2 down at the home of the Champions-elect. It’s the kind of luxury that Liverpool don’t have and the kind of money that Brendan Rodgers will only ever be able to spend on a single player, much less one he can leave on the bench, in the event that: (a) he’s dreaming, or (b) Liverpool eventually decide to sell a certain player that I won’t even mention because, while I’m not superstitious, there’s no harm in hedging your bets (consider fate not tempted). It’s a familiar story for Liverpool – sell in order to buy. Weaken your team here in order to strengthen it there, and you’d better be damn sure that the player you’re signing is worth it because, if he’s not, it’ll set you back three, four years.
That’s the thing about incremental improvements – it’s a slow process and you can often suffer setbacks, but when you don’t have money to burn or 15 to 25 years’ worth of stability at a club, it’s all you can do. For Liverpool supporters, and for Brendan Rodgers, it’s the only way. We won’t ever be signing the likes of Falcao, Cavani or Hazard, and a title challenge (if it ever comes) is likely a half-decade or so down the line at the earliest. It’s not ideal, but it’s the way it is, and this season is a case-in-point. We’ll win less trophies than last season, but we might also finish a couple of places higher and offensively it’s like night and day from this point a year ago: the fluidity, the goals, the increasing certainty that teams can set up whatever way they want and we’ll
still score a few. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, but the improvements are there. Enough to finish top-4? No, but hopefully enough to set the foundations for future successes.
Naturally, however, there’s still a long way to go. There is still much progress to be made, and it will often be slow and painstaking, that’s just the nature of it. So while it’s been a joy to watch us at times this season (parts of yesterday’s game, particularly the first goal, were no different), there is still that question-mark when it comes to the better teams, or at least the ones who effectively target our weaknesses. Is it a systemic problem that we simply have to hope will iron itself out given time, or is it a personnel issue? Personally, I think it’s a bit of both. I think with a system like the one Rodgers is trying to implement, you need a certain level of quality and a certain type of player. Not necessarily Xavi or Iniesta levels, just players with the ability to play a certain way. Right now, this squad is shaping up nicely in terms of players who have the ability – physical, mental, technical – to play how Rodgers wants to play. I think (or I hope) that the squad’s capacity will continue to improve along these lines over the short-to-medium term. Sturridge, Coutinho and Allen (not to mention the embedding of youngsters like Sterling and Suso) have definitely improved the overall quality of the squad this season in my opinion, and I remain confident that Borini will add to that in time. I just hope that Rodgers will be supported financially in the summer in order to keep the momentum of such improvements going because it’s clear that the better quality you get, the more players you get that can play the way this system demands, the better the results will be. This is all fairly standard logic.
The next big step is surely the centre of our defence (not so much Agger, obviously), and I’m sure it’s an area that the manager will look to strengthen in the summer. In fact, with Carragher retiring, Skrtel out of favour and chances for Coates extremely limited all season, I can foresee a
couple of centre-backs arriving this summer which, in many ways, is not ideal but may nonetheless be necessary. A case of short-term pain for long-term gain, perhaps? Regardless of stats, regardless of clean-sheet figures, this team still has a brittle look to it, something which I can’t see being addressed to a satisfactory extent in the last nine games of this season. Systemically, maybe, but I think this situation needs at least one more player of the right quality to make things click. Carragher’s continued selection over the past couple of months may mystify some, but it’s not that hard to understand. I reckon the truth is that he’s been something of a safety blanket for Rodgers, particularly in the aftermath of Oldham where Skrtel and Coates had a wretched day at the office. I like Coates, and I hope he has a future at Anfield because he’s young and has at least two of those attributes I mentioned earlier (physical and technical ability) in spades, but does he have the right mentality for this system?
Will he have the right mentality? Will Skrtel, long-term, I mean? It seems to me that Rodgers is wavering on both of them. Carragher may not be physically or technically adept enough to play in a system like this (not an issue from May, obviously), but let’s face it, he’s in the team for his leadership and organisational qualities. Mistake against Zenit aside, he’s been solid, and solid is good compared to what we saw against Oldham. In the long-term, however, something clearly needs to be done because Liverpool continue to look shaky at the back, and not just against players of the quality of Bale and Dembele.
Luckily, with only Chelsea and Everton (both at home) to come in terms of top-8 teams, Liverpool should still be able to win games solely through the kind of offensive possession, movement and ability we’ve been seeing more and more as the season has progressed. Going with two in midfield yesterday was always going to have its plus and minus points, but what do you do? Leave out Sturridge, thereby making the undroppable Suarez the lone spearhead of the attack and taking him out of that ‘No.10’-type position where he’s so effective? Yeah, but maybe the extra body in the middle (say, Allen) would have stopped Spurs getting such a grip on the game during the 30–minute span either side of half-time where they scored twice, hit the post, and generally dominated? Right, but by the same token, would Liverpool have attacked as effectively as they did in the first 25-30 minutes had Sturridge not been running in behind Spurs, had Suarez not been dropping off and linking up superbly with the likes of Coutinho, etc? Sturridge’s pace and intelligence was a constant danger, and even though he didn’t have a great game, it seemed to me that his mere presence opened things up in a way that Liverpool struggled to do for months prior to his arrival. That presence was certainly missed against West Brom and Zenit in recent weeks.
Yes, there was less numbers in midfield against a top team who were possibly able to take advantage of that by scoring twice and creating a lot of pressure for a prolonged period; it would also be true to say, in fairness, that both of their goals were poorly defended, an issue that I’ve already touched upon. Nonetheless, Liverpool will be playing in this formation for the foreseeable future because Sturridge and Suarez WILL play when they’re both fit, and you have to say, rightfully so, because they WILL score, and often. Against the ‘big’ teams, these two have already shown their worth, linking up superbly for a good hour of the Arsenal game, causing Manchester United all sorts of problems after Sturridge came on for the last half-hour at Old Trafford, combining well at Manchester City, and now seeing through a 3-2 win against Tottenham. There have been games where either had off-days, but that’s four recent games against the top-5 which yielded 4 goals for the pair of them and 8 goals for Liverpool. Throw in Coutinho and a suddenly shockingly-useful Downing, and it’s clear that Liverpool’s main issues are no longer offensive. If that was the first part of Rodgers’ plan, there’s evidence that it’s worked. Now for the next.
I want to finish with a few words on Gareth Bale, who is clearly a superb player who knows how to play the modern game, in all its aspects. Aside from paying homage to Cristiano Ronaldo every time he lines up to take a free kick, he also calls to mind the Real Madrid man in how he draws the referee’s attention to fouls, or supposed fouls. Take the Lucas ‘foul’ yesterday which led to Tottenham’s second. He’s a strong lad with pace to burn, but Bale instead chose to simply stop playing and hold his face as soon as the Brazilian’s arm made contact with his shoulder. No real theatrics, no arched back or rolling around on the deck, he simply stopped playing. He didn’t shoot the referee a frustrated glare or theatrically throw his hands up in the air as Ronaldo might, but the effect was the same (and, by the way, don’t be surprised if he adds those gestures to his arsenal in the future). Ah, it
must have been a foul then, right Michael Oliver? And why did he stop playing? Simply because he saw a greater advantage in winning the free than playing on.
Add to this his antics in the first-half where a genuine 50/50 aerial duel for the ball with Gerrard saw him lying on the deck, his foot pounding the ground in apparent agony (the Liverpool captain’s body language was one of pure exasperation), and you’ve got a player who you might be forgiven for imagining to be more at home in the non-contact environment of a basketball court than a football pitch. This, however, would be to misunderstand his motives. My girlfriend wondered why such a big lad spends so much time on the deck (sounds like we could be talking about Drogba here). Well, both of the above incidents led to Tottenham goals, both directly assisted by Bale. It has little to do with physicality and everything to do with tactical advantage. It is, after all, difficult to mark the danger-man out of a game when he’s taking a free-kick or has just come back onto the pitch after an injury (although Liverpool should still have done better for both). If Suarez has been known to take a tumble from time to time, his efforts are usually quite amateurish and easily spotted (one of the many reasons why I hate to see him do it, aside from the fact that he’s so much more dangerous if he stays upright). Bale, however, is already an old-hand. Didier who?
Incidentally, Suarez just seems to get better every week. I’ll be shocked if he gets an award, though, while also being shocked if he doesn’t, if that makes sense? Either way, not a single fuck will be given, either by the player or his supporters. In terms of awards, given that Liverpool will be winning no silverware, the golden boot will be all that matters to him and, should he win it, nobody will be able to take it away from him. It will, however, represent only a fraction of what he has brought to this team. What a player.
