I know you're completely obsessed with the entire knee-jerk thing
but judging by your post above I presume you missed my response to one of your earlier posts. Here it is.
Should we dismantle everything that was good during the last solid run of games - included a win against the reigning champions, no less - just because yesterday's result didn't go our way?
What happened to the 'future is bright, is red' confidence that preceeded the match?
I think you have to go a bit deeper K-O.
I posted what I'm about to say in more detail a few pages back but it's worth i think raising the issue again since a] it's absolutely crucial to the remaining games if we're serious about keping alive the now significantly dwindling chance of top four and b] the significance of it seems to have been overlooked
The run to which you refer has, in broad terms, two distinct phases. Pre Daniel and post Daniel.
Pre-daniel with Sterling on fire up front central and Coutinho also nigh unplayable we looked pretty awesome and the results came from performances that merited those results due to some impressive offensive play. It included the Man City game to which you refer. I think Daniel came on for markovich late on in the game.
Post Daniel we've continued getting the results but it has not been on the back of the same overall level of performance and has depended to a large part on brilliant goalkeeping and brilliant individual goals from Coutinho and Henderson with a clutch from Sturridge too of course.
The worrying aspect is that since coming back Sturridge has settled into the groove of a performance level that is simply not providing anything like the energy and spark that Sterling was providing in the same role in the earlier part of the run. I know he has scored during this time - and he remains a brilliant striker and our only real striker worthy of the name at this time - but on his own in that central front attacking role in overall terms he is just not providing what we need and that absence of what we do need seems to be filtering back through the team.
The fact it has coincided with Ibe's injury and an apparent form dip from Markovich who doesn't even seem to be coming into contention for selection right now doesn't help. Also it's clear Sterling out wide is providing nothing like the contribution he was delivering when in that central front attacking role. So there's a bit of a double even triple whammy going on.
A month or so ago in terms of performance levels we were beginning to look like the best team around. This past four or five games - despite positive results [yesterday apart] we look nothing like it. I feel myself it's a knock on effect from the introduction and perseverence with the currently [I'm sure it's only a temporary thing] inneffectual Daniel. I've not heard or read or more significantly seen evidence of anything which provides any insight that it's anything other than that. But the fact remains whether i'm right or wrong there's a stark difference between the two spells in terms of overall performance levels. At a time when it seems we were brewing very nicely we suddenly went off the boil.
And right now we need to do what we can to bring it back to the boil. Perhaps Daniel and Sterling in tandem. Or back to that City game set up with just Sterling supported by Coutinho and whoever. Whatever the case I feel we need Sterling back in that central role whilst Sturridge rekindles that amazing level of form he showed earlier in the season at White hart lane just prior to the injury.
