Future of Rodgers in the Hands of Sturridge

For Brendan Rodgers, his fears over the Aston Villa clash with Liverpool surely rivalled any other nerves the Northern Irishman has experienced in over three years with the club.

Football fans always carry a myriad of emotions before their team goes into battle, but for Liverpool fans last weekend they would have been forgiven had they left their positive energy at home before making the trip to Anfield.

Liverpool have struggled badly this season since the early enthusiasm of narrow, fortunate, wins over Stoke City and Bournemouth.

They were replaced with a humbling at home to West Ham United, a comfortable win for a hardly inspiring Manchester United side and slip-ups against Bordeaux and Norwich City, before the Reds were almost utterly embarrassed by Carlisle United (with the worst defence in League Two) in the League Cup.

Depression has replaced excitement.

Rodgers may have felt extremely nervous for the team when Liverpool chased the Premier League title 18 months ago in clashes against the likes of Manchester City and Chelsea.

However, for his own personal future at the club, the Aston Villa clash resembled the last chance saloon. In fact, at the very least, the next few games against FC Sion in the Europa League and the Premier League trips to Everton and Tottenham also carry a similar significance.

Given that the upcoming fixture list also includes matches against Southampton, Chelsea and Crystal Palace, the future really doesn’t look good for the Liverpool manager.

Good thing his main man is back.

If Rodgers is going to survive and escape his seemingly inevitable execution at Liverpool, then the fitness and form of Daniel Sturridge is vital.

Without his goals against Aston Villa, the Reds would have resembled the 2014/15 side – toothless in attack and awful in defence – instead of the 2013/14 demo we received at the weekend.

At his best, the 26 year old provides Liverpool with their true identity under Rodgers, especially with Danny Ings as his partner.

Pace has been restored in attack, something which has rarely happened since the ‘SAS’ of Sturridge and Luis Suarez were broken up in 2014, allowing quicker build-up play and higher energy further up the pitch.

Whilst new signing Christian Benteke works hard for the team and provides a greater work-rate than Mario Balotelli or Rickie Lambert (more enthusiasm than Balotelli and more pace than Lambert), Liverpool struggle to get the best out of him, and, although it’s still early days in the Sturridge and Benteke partnership, the team as a whole look quicker, sharper and can press effectively when Sturridge plays upfront with Ings.

Ings is no Suarez, but he helps Sturridge and Liverpool express their natural style of play under Rodgers that suits the majority of the players at his disposal.

As against Norwich, playing a 3-4-1-2 formation again made sense, helping Sturridge and Philippe Coutinho find more space to express themselves, while also transforming Alberto Moreno’s play and confidence.

Playing James Milner further forward was a positive move from Rodgers, and led to the stand-in skipper’s best performance of the season, while Lucas Leiva continues to consistently excel in defensive midfield, especially when Liverpool were under pressure and needed a cool head in the final 20 minutes of the game.

Lucas showed his experience and his value to both Liverpool and Rodgers for this season – it’s incredible to think he was almost sold this summer.

However, Nathaniel Clyne is a right-back rather than a right wing-back, and that continues to show, while Emre Can is struggling to nail down a position at Liverpool. The 21 year old German impressed last season when he was moved into defence, but eventually showed his lack of experience in the role, and became repeatedly targeted by opposition attackers.

Now back in the same position, Can is showing similar pros and cons – he offers Liverpool a ball-playing route out from the back, but does not have the positional sense to be a centre-back. Moreover, compared to playing in midfield, his mistakes in defence are more noticeable and costly, from the penalty he conceded in last season’s League Cup tie against Chelsea to the poor clearance against Aston Villa that Rudy Gestede should have capitalised on.

Can’s versatility may be his undoing at the moment, because he offers positives and negatives in whichever position he plays in, apart from right-back!

Liverpool need to be patient with Can, he is still young and in the long-term may become successful in midfield for Liverpool, as he is effective with the ball but needs to be quicker in his passing.

In the short-term, playing in defence will give him time to improve his speed of distribution on the ball, but he is certainly under pressure for his place if he cannot learn from his defensive mistakes.

With Dejan Lovren out injured, Joe Gomez is another option who is good on the ball but also a natural centre-back.

Overall though, Liverpool cannot rely on Can at the moment, or any of the defence – it has never been a strength under Rodgers, regardless of which players feature at the back.

He and Liverpool are totally reliant on Sturridge scoring goals, as only the attack will save Rodgers.

With the England frontman at Liverpool’s head, Rodgers can return to a style that suits his fast, free-flowing players such as Coutinho to provide Sturridge with the ammunition so he can continue to score the goals that keeps Rodgers in his job.

It might be reckless and result in a ‘you score four, we score five’ mentality again, only not as successful as the 2013/14 side, but Rodgers doesn’t need the title this season to remain Liverpool manager. Just wins. Then in the long-term he can worry about other areas of the team.

However, for all of this to succeed, Rodgers needs someone to finish it off. So Brendan, you may want to think about wrapping Daniel in cotton wool, as he represents your future at Liverpool Football Club.