AFTER our pretty darn dismal start to the season last Saturday, our first home game against the defending Champions later may look ominous, but then again they didn’t have the most convincing of starts by all accounts either.
Therefore, by way of assessing our chances in this fixture I thought I would compare our spine of Reina/Agger/Skrtel/Lucas/Gerrard/Suarez against what is arguably the best in the league: Hart/Kompany/Yaya/Silva/Tevez/Aguero. I will however try to do this with the utmost impartiality, but in doing so the question of bias will no doubt arise, so thus, is a comparison like this already redundant?
I recently wrote a piece, in fact it may have been my first for this site, in which I analysed the spine of our team which I thought comes in for unjust criticism.
Instead, arguing that our decline has come off the pitch, rather than on it in the sense that our spine isn’t severely weaker than the class of 2008/09.
In continuation of that then, where does our spine fit in with the class of the league today?
It makes perfect sense to begin with the two keepers: Pepe Reina and Joe Hart. Easily two of the best keepers in the league, and arguably worldwide. Pepe Reina’s first three seasons with Liverpool saw him given the golden glove accolade as he was almost unbeatable between the sticks and dubbed a penalty saving expert helping us win the F.A. Cup and reach the Champions League final the year after with penalty shootout heroics against West Ham and Chelsea respectively. But synonymous with our form of recent years, our number 25 has slumped to inconsistency as an ever increasing proneness to mistakes creeping into his game.
In stark contrast, Joe Hart, whose career up until 2010 has been littered with loan moves, until Roberto Mancini bravely chose him ahead of the dependable Shay Given in the first game of that season against Spurs. A match in which he produced a man of the match display and has since firmly cemented his place as City and England’s number 1 whilst winning the golden glove for the last two seasons. It must be said then, that at present, Joe Hart is surely a step up from our man but both are still easily able to produce such match saving displays as they have already on numerous occasions.
Likewise then, a similar story follows both central defensive partnerships in terms of where the golden glove has ended up, and it would be naive to assume that both keepers solely achieved such an award without the aide of those in front of them. But then again, it would be hazardous to look at this stat to compare the two central defensive pairings without taking in those on either side of them, as after all they too make up the defensive back line.
Moreover, there is no continuity in the players that have made up either defensive line so using such a stat is completely futile until that is established.
Since our current first choice central defensive partnership of Agger/Skrtel became consistent starters, our full backs too have developed into being Glen Johnson and Jose Enrique; the former a great attacker but still suspect defensively despite improvement, the latter experienced a wonderful start to life at Anfield, but has since faltered. Still there is confidence he can reach the form he set at the start of his time in L4. If Agger remains, we can safely say that we have a definite back five.
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City too have had their fair share of chop and change but have now settled on Zabaletta and Clichy to play either side of Kompany and Lescott. I would argue that both side’s full backs are similar in terms of their form and ability, thus only emphasising the skills of the two central spines. City finished Champions, whilst we came eighth. So it seems obvious that Kompany and Lescott are better than Skrtel and Agger.
But Liverpool were poor throughout the team, and the conspicuous absence of Lucas for the majority of the season meant that we lost our lead in the fewest goals conceded table.
That being so, it is fast becoming apparent that one cannot simply focus on individual parts of a spine, instead needing to focus on it as a whole as each part has a bearing on another evident in the above paragraphs.
As we move on too, another thing is starting to come to the surface. Throughout both spines there is room for debate on which has the best potential, but what is contrasting is that City’s spine is much larger with room for debate on what that may be too. Liverpool do not have this luxury. Therefore, City have a spine with depth which of course is going to help them over the course of a season as they deal with injuries, tiredness etc as well as being able to adjust to the opposition better.
Evidence of this is provided if we look at their options up top for example. With Tevez, Aguero and Dzeko, they have an abundance of goalscoring options, whereas Liverpool have Luis Suarez, whom although would be of the class that City possess, is not so clinical in front of goal as those and even more importantly, he is the sole striker we rely on to get them.
Furthermore, City have the players in the surrounding positions too, take Samir Nasri for example compared to the likes of Stewart Downing that we boast.
The conclusion I am tending towards then is that there is little to be learned from comparing our two spines over the course of a season, yet when they come to face each other there are after all only eleven players on the pitch with a spine running through that. Liverpool and City’s spine is arguably little and far between meaning that a tight affair looks on cards.
Instead, the focus should be not on our so called “paper spine”, but in its real lack of quality in depth and those surrounding positions if we are going to see us challenge to break into the top four this time out. It is, after all, a marathon not a sprint, but with the loan deal of Nuri Sahin, it looks as if Brendan Rodgers has tapped into this theory and is looking to address it.
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