SUPPORTING Liverpool FC should come with a health warning.
The incessant pattern of poor performances and results followed by resounding victories with breathtaking football must have some form of detrimental effect on the nervous system.
Yet again, Liverpool followed up a couple of bad results with a brilliant 5-0 Premier League victory at home to an under strength Swansea City, which suggests once again that the club are moving in the right direction.
From the very first whistle, Liverpool laid siege to Swansea’s goal and it shouldn’t have taken as long as 36 minutes for the home side to take a lead.
The opener came when Luis Suarez won his second penalty in two league games. The Uruguayan was adjudged to have been felled by Kemy Agustien on the right hand touchline.
It should have been Liverpool’s second penalty because Daniel Sturridge was blatantly fouled by Kyle Bartley on 23 minutes. Perhaps referee Howard Webb was atoning from that earlier error when awarding the Suarez penalty, although it was in itself a foul anyway.
Steven Gerrard made no mistake from the spot this time and unsurprisingly he slotted his penalty into the bottom left hand corner, the opposite side from his failed West Brom effort.
A decent first half display, but the floodgates really opened in the second half, where Liverpool scored three goals in the opening 11 minutes.
Within just 16 seconds of the re-start, Suarez played in Philippe Coutinho on his full debut, who jinked inside his marker and fired a right footed shot straight at Michel Vorm that was too powerful for him to keep out.
A superb start to Coutinho’s Liverpool career, who will hopefully live up to the hype surrounding his recent transfer. He played well overall, but, understandably, he tired later on and was substituted by Jordan Henderson on the hour mark.
Time will tell on the success of Coutinho, but young and skilful Brazilians are normally a sure-fire hit – should they settle in the country of course.
And that’s why his debut goal could be vitally important.
The goal of the match arrived on 50 minutes. Starting on the far left, Liverpool strung together a mesmerising passing move, which contained a couple of sparkling one-twos and culminated in Daniel Sturridge nudging the ball inside to Jose Enrique, who used his right instep to fire into the top corner.
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In many ways, Enrique sums up Liverpool as a whole this season. One minute he is brilliant and the next he is awful. Just like his team in general.
The Reds weren’t finished there. Luis Suarez notched a deserved goal on 56 minutes when he ghosted past Kyle Bartley and Garry Monk before curling a left footed shot into the bottom corner.
Liverpool completed the rout on 71 minutes when Wayne Routledge’s handball gave the Reds another penalty (yes, that’s correct, Howard Webb awarded Liverpool two penalties).
Steven Gerrard graciously handed the baton to Sturridge, who lifted the ball over Vorm’s dive and into the left hand corner.
Gerrard no doubt recognises the importance of Sturridge continuing his goalscoring streak, and it was a canny piece of leadership from him.
Overall it was a brilliant performance, particularly in the second half.
Yes, Swansea were seriously weakened ahead of their Capital One Cup final next weekend, but their players were fighting for a starting spot in the Wembley show-piece, whilst several were seasoned internationals.
After a victory that was littered with the kind of football that Rodgers was meant to bring to his new club, it’s understandable that there is a sense – once more – that everything appears rosy in Liverpool’s garden.
But for the sake of our well-being, it’s probably best to stay grounded because a bad result always appears to be around the corner.
However, this couldn’t have been better preparation for Thursday’s crucial Europa League tie against Zenit St. Petersburg. Passage to the next round would surely aid the club’s search for its eternally elusive holy grail: consistency.
L4L Man of the Match: Luis Suarez bucks his team’s trend in that he is so consistently brilliant that it would be easy to take him for granted. One can only hope the club realises its on-field potential whilst he wears Red; in the meantime, we should cherish his sublime play. He was simply brilliant today. He just pips Daniel Sturridge.
Follow me on Twitter: @antonyjlfc
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A great win and as the consolation for LFC supporters.
Victory is a victory but bigger tests will come.
For The team, the Club to move on, we can all see that quality in few areas would and will make us outright top four team for the season after this.
This summer is so big I cant stress this enough and we need no time at all in messing about, short lists should be drawn up, meeting should be going, scouts should be so busy that they have no time to sleep!!
For me Coutinho will be and is going to be huge, when match fit and fully up to speed with team mates this guy will already by middle of season be worth twice his 8.7 million fee, Sturridge has been a great bu its like he was made for us in a way, so great deals there.
I would like to see; SUSO, SHELVEY, ROBINSON, FLANAGAN all go on 1 year loan deals as they need to grow up that bit more and play week in week out.
They can not be seen as 1st team players at all, they are to light weight to slow, and far to young at this present time, good player they are but there are not ready and if we are to be top four next year there is no space for them.
Then you the dead wood that will not be here or should not be on the wage bill.
CARROLL, SPEARING, WILSON, PACHECO. – none are getting games, pacheco cant keep on playing in reserve side and not moving up, he is not that young any more, spearing average and better at lower level, carroll huge wages and not mobile enough now we have the other two new buys up top, wilson, very very poor player and coates, wisdom are better.
Other players i would like to see go if we have the money to not just bring in a direct replacement, but MUCH BETTER A PLAYER THEN WHAT WE ARE SELLING!.
For me COATES, DOWINING, JONES GK, can all be sold.
Then you have that group that for me are only at best squad players then we bring in better then what we have sold and then you have that stronger group.
HENDERSON, WISDOM, ALLEN, SKRTEL, KELLY, BORINI,
The only 1st teamers i have without buying in the summer are;
REINA
JOHNSON ? AGGER ENRIQUE
GERRARD LUCUS ?
SUAREZ STURRIDGE COUTINHO
Already we are without 2 1st team quality players but with the players being sold we are very weak in depth and that’s where the huge problem is!!!
It says leave a comment not a story !
I agree with NEARLY all Sam , except Allen should NOT be in the squad , not now , not ever , he is totally useless
same goes for borini.
why do you not any value you mug,,, you add nothing but come to me and say add a comment not a story,,, get on your bike you mug
Well we learned 1 thing from yesterday’s game –
Swansea reserves are not very good !
This papers over the cracks, the first time we beat a team in the top 10 all season is hardly worth getting excited about, Swansea played well within themselves with a cup final coming up, their players literally stood off us all game. It’s embarassing reading people on Twitter suggesting we will challenge for the title next year. This is just typical over-reaction once again.
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I read some fans saying how we are going to knock 5 past Zenit on thursday too . lol
Was disgusted when BR sent on Allen again . Will he never learn ? If he doesn’t permanently dump his pet rat then we will never improve