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Liverpool are finally on the up

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Liverpool's improvement lately has been sustained and shows no signs of letting up

Liverpool’s improvement lately has been sustained and shows no signs of letting up

I’d forgotten what it felt like to play well week-in-week-out.

Hadn’t you?

It’s been a while, but Brendan Rodgers has finally figured out a way to not only get us out of the mire, but give us a much-needed injection of style that we hadn’t seen since August.

People will point out that it took longer than it perhaps should have done, as Rodgers stubbornly persisted with a system that was fundamentally flawed considering the players he had at his disposal, but two years ago Rodgers was being praised for his willingness to adapt and change systems and philosophies when things weren’t working; surely he should be given credit for the same thing this season?

Despite Dejan Lovren’s alarming lack of quality, it still takes a lot of guts for a manager to drop their new £20m summer signing before Christmas. Glen Johnson’s injury has allowed Rodgers to see just how well the team performs in the right back’s absence, and he has taken full advantage of Gerrard’s announcement that he will be leaving the club at the end of the season.

Rodgers no longer feels obligated to start the club captain in every single game, and in pairing Lucas (who nearly looks like the player he was five years ago) and Henderson together further back in midfield, he’s found the ideal solution to the Gerrard problem. Stevie can now play further up the field and do what he does best in linking up with our forwards. Plus, he can be rotated to ensure that he doesn’t get tired by starting too many games.

Brendan has also stopped playing static forwards as a lone striker, opting for the pace and mobility of Raheem Sterling instead of Balotelli and Lambert. He must also be praised for having the courage to rest Sterling and rely on other assets that had been struggling to prove their worth to the team. I approved of the decision to rest Sterling but was starting to worry that his break had gone on a bit too long. But we won every game in his absence, with Markovic, Lambert and even Fabio Borini stepping up to the plate and getting on the scoresheet, and he looked even better upon his return against Chelsea.

We’ve had some hiccups along the way, but in our last 15 games we’ve won 8, drawn 5 and lost 1. Playing Chelsea at home in the first leg of the League Cup Semi-final was the best I’ve seen us play since the 3-0 against Tottenham in August. I can’t remember the last time we genuinely dominated a top team, to the point where they didn’t have a single shot in open play for the entire game.

LFC players

The whole team has been on the climb since before New Year

Everyone looked fantastic. Sterling of course was brilliant, Coutinho has been consistently threatening for weeks now, Gerrard played very well in attack before being substituted for Lallana, who also played well following his first game back from injury and nearly scored the winner but for some outstanding goalkeeping by Courtois. Markovic has not only shown great quality going forward in the wing-back role, but has also busted his gut to get back and defend on multiple occasions.

As I briefly mentioned earlier, Lucas almost looks like the player he was five years ago before he got two horrifically-long term injuries and he is much more suited next to Henderson than he is the captain. Emre Can isn’t a natural centre-back but aside from one clumsy tackle in his own box on Eden Hazard, he’s been miles better than Dejan Lovren.

Oh, and Mamadou Sakho has been showing Rodgers what we’ve been missing at the back when he was either injured or sitting on the bench. Hell, even Mignolet doesn’t look particularly terrible at the moment.

We have a difficult run of games coming up after the weekend, but even so let’s enjoy what we’ve got right now. It’s been a while since we’ve been this good and the moment should be savoured as much as possible. Or maybe we can big ourselves up even more.

Daniel Sturridge hasn’t even come back yet.

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Drummer, gamer and football fanatic. I love to write about Liverpool and spend most of my time thinking about the mighty Reds. That or Game of Thrones.

3 comments

  • isa says:

    Buy Benzima only

  • Sylvex says:

    Well it’s very okay to av gotten a manager who always try to adapt to situatation of things in the team, but it took Bredan too long to admit the fact that Mario can’t play as a lone striker upfront, I still refuse to belive dat Balotelli is a flop in our team because he hasn’t bn paired with either pacy Daniel and much with Raheem, he’s scored two brilliant goals for us this season and we should remeber that these two goals came when he was being paired up front, the first with Lambert and the other with Raheem, he’s performance against Tottenham shows a glimbs of what he’s capable of when he’s being paired. We’re certainly gettin to our best and am happy about it, Our signings has bn great though it took them a wee bit of time to adapt to the team but yes they’ve adapted well, my only question is will Dejan also come good for this dear team?

    • Josh Atkins says:

      I almost completely agree with you on Balotelli. Rodgers persisted too long with him on his own, and I won’t declare him a flop until we see what happens if he’s partnered with Sturridge. However, I’m not certain he works that well with Sterling. Whenever they’ve played together, Sterling seems too quick for him. By the time Balotelli’s ready to give him the ball after holding it up, Sterling’s already gone past the defender.

      Dejan Lovren is the only signing that I’ve given up all hope on.

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