As Manchester United played our greatest rivals on Sunday I thought it time to assess their progress towards adding to their titles in the light of their highly publicized documentary.
It’s often said that at the end of the season the league doesn’t lie. After 5 games Liverpool have their worst start for over 100 years, and sit in the relegation zone with no wins yet and 2 home defeats to top 4 teams.
Brendan Rodgers blames Sunday’s defeat on the Referee, a tactic that led to the sacking of his predecessors. But is that true?
A highly charged Anfield, in a week following the revelations of a cover up at Hillsborough, created high emotions, adrenaline and expectations to beat United.
Liverpool set up as expected, with their strikeforce lightweight, but with 3 in centre midfield, and one winger.
United invited them to dominate possession playing 4-4-1-1, expecting Michael Carrick and Ryan Giggs to play against Jonjo Shelvey, Steven Gerrard and Joe Allen. The 3 dominated the 2.
This dominance led to lots of chances for Glen Johnson to attack Rafael, and Raheem Sterling attacking Patrice Evra. Fabio Borini and Martin Kelly supported them well but the attacks floundered as only Luis Suarez competed against Rio Ferdinand and Jonny Evans. It was good until the ball came in the box but Liverpool were hoping for a lucky bounce as opposed to taking us apart.
Meanwhile the poor clearance kicking of Pepe Reina gave us hope when there was little else created from the 33% first half possession that belonged to United.
A fast frantic half of flying tackles, injuries and Liverpool possession ended with Shelvey first clattering Ryan Giggs before diving at Evans and being shown red, leaving the field finger pointing at Sir Alex Ferguson (who would be foolish enough to dot that?) and claiming he had influenced the Referee. It’s hard to resist chanting “always the victim” when players behave like that but Shelvey swung the game towards United.
Both wide left players were withdrawn a halftime, Borini was poor and Suso replaced him. Nani was taken off for Paul Scholes to gain some measure of possession.
Suso was bright and intelligent, and created the goal for Gerrard.
Scholes brought a measure of control as Giggs drifted left and vanished from the game.
With 10 men Liverpool continued to get to our box, but relied heavily on Suarez who creates openings only to show what a poor finisher he is.
As Johnson failed to understand that he was alone on the left side so the space for Antonio Valencia opened up and the 2 goals came from that area. This wasn’t smart play from the England fullback.
Overall what we saw was a team that has no edge up front, that relies on luck to win rather than skill and where hot headed players. I watched Being Liverpool episode 2 when Rodgers tells Shelvey he has all the tools but “stay on your feet”, yet look what he did!
Indiscipline which Rodgers has to deal with as he is at a Club where discipline is missing. Johnson cost them the game through his indiscipline and Shelvey let the Club down on their big day.
Liverpool are far from a top 4 team. They are weak on the left side, need 3 strikers that they can’t afford now Kenny Dalglish has blown the budget, and with little cover at the back beyond Jamie Carragher.
The 4-3-3 set up that Liverpool are playing lacks a front 3 to deliver the goals that their possession deserves.
The stats don’t lie! They have had more shots on goal than any team in the Premier League yet sit in the bottom 3. The league doesn’t lie, this is not a team that will be in Europe next season, unless they buy big in January.
Liverpool are a long way from Being Liverpool.
By Steve Burrows CBE @ifollowsteve
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