Sterling has been off form in recent matches, along with many of his team mates but all is not lost
With the 1-0 FA Cup Replay win over Blackburn, Liverpool reignited a spark that had been lost for about a month. A string of poor performances had left us with 1 win, 1 draw and 2 defeats, scoring only 2 goals and conceding 6. It had seemed like we’d not only forgotten how to play, but we’d also forgotten how to fight for a win. By the time we got ourselves back on track, it would be too late to get back into the top 4.
But perhaps all is not lost. With the FA Cup victory, we saw Liverpool really fight to secure a win. Sure, we still looked a bit toothless as Blackburn stuck 8 or 9 men behind the ball at all times and had to rely on a bit of magic from Coutinho to pull us through, but with that winning battle we took a crucial step forward to recovering our lost form.
Considering our next 5 games are Newcastle (H), Aston Villa (FA Cup Semi), West Brom (A), Hull (A) and QPR (H), there is a real chance for us to build up a head of steam again for the rest of the season. Newcastle are a mess right now and if we can’t beat them on our own turf then we don’t really deserve a place in the top 4 anyway.
West Brom could be tough (an away day against a Pulis side always is), but they haven’t yet completely transformed into the Tony Pulis machine that we saw with Crystal Palace last season; they’re still capable of bad results and hopefully we can exploit that. Hull and QPR also shouldn’t be a problem if we want to class ourselves as a genuine top 4 contender.
It’s a very good run of fixtures against teams who are all in the bottom half of the table. By contrast, United take on Manchester City (who have allowed themselves to sink to 4th), and Chelsea in their next two games, while Arsenal also have to take on Chelsea after their FA Cup tie and Man City have to face Spurs as well as their derby.
While United have irritatingly hit a good patch of form at the moment, there are two massive chances for them to drop points in their next couple of games. Though in all likelihood, they might end up beating City who are really stuck in a rut right now. Man City are currently 7 points above us in 4th; if they lose to both United and Spurs, that potentially leaves a 1 point difference between them and us, and there’s no guarantee they won’t drop more points to other teams in the meantime.
Arsenal are arguably the form team right now but even they have a tougher schedule than us. Of course, we do still have to play Chelsea after the QPR game but we could put ourselves in an excellent position by the time that game comes around.
If we beat Villa in the FA Cup, we’ll have a final to look forward to come the end of the season and a real chance to win the first trophy of Rodgers’ reign and put some gloss on what’s been a very tough season.
In the league, all we can do really is knuckle down and get back into the habit of winning games. If we can do that, then hopefully in 5 games’ time we’ll be in a position to really save our season.
The last few games have been tough to swallow. But not all is lost. Not yet.
apologies to all hard core rodgers supporters out there…if we’re going for the likes of carl jenkinson and ashley williams in the summer as reported…then i’m afraid that rodgers will creat a swansea part 2 at liverpool with just average players…bye bye champions league…it’ll be a long while before we can get there again…1 step forward and 10 steps backwards again…and with rodgers failing to attract top foreign players and going only for british isles players…then it can only get worse for liverpool n never going to be better under his tutelage…
To all the hardcore BR supporters out there (not to be confused with real LFC supporters like many of us), they had been singing his praises when we hit that purple patch, while conveniently forget to mention it was the same manager who got us into the atrocious start to the 1st half of the season and of course some dude signings ( Mario anyone ? )
And when we have to play top 4 teams or top 4 contenders, BR as usual, seems to always falter.
And for all his supposedly managerial brillance, we are in this position just because we lost one player, however good he is.
While Raheem and his agent posturing is pathetic (please sell him now to clubs like MC or Real and let him finds out how young players usually ends up there), i do not blame other players such as Henderson for stalling on the contract. The key reason ? We as a club are going NOWHERE UNDER BR. It’s as simple as that, from his idiotic philosophy to his penchant for signing average players from average clubs, under BR we had digress even further.
Many of us including myself, are totally not surprise WHEN (not if) we finished outside the top 4. And as said irritatingly M.Utd would finish above us and in the top 4. Why are we all so surprise ? I am not. The reason is that their OWNERS have the foresight and more importantly the GUTS to appoint a REAL MANAGER AND WINNER in the form of LVG. Not like ours, who are too scared to change this when its not working.
Winning the FA Cup ? Yes that would be nice but didn’t Wigan won it not too long ago and what happened to them since ?
Brendan Rodgers out !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Brendan out ,average player signing manager out pls b4 we bcom swansea.