BRENDAN Rodgers’ deep love of the passing game and a very Barca-eque ‘tiki-taka’ approach could not be more well known to the footballing fraternity than they already are. Much was made about it throughout last season and no doubt, dozens of articles have been written about this over the first few months of the new season.
So, when he first signed as the Reds’ new manager one of my first thoughts went straight to the squad and the players that I firmly believed would be easily capable of fitting into this system.
They would pretty clearly need to be technically very good players, have intelligence, know their roles within the team and be prepared to sacrifice their own glory for the good of the system and their team-mates.
It is exactly this reason why I believed that Jose Enrique would have no issues slipping seamlessly into the manager’s new system. We saw from the off, under Dalglish, that Enrique is a quality left-back/wing-back, with the ability to give opposition full-back and midfielders complete hell with his marauding runs up the wing. But, more importantly, he manages to match this with a tenacity and work-rate that you don’t often associate with that type of player. For the cash that changed hands for him, we seemed to have robbed Newcastle of a top-quality player.
Within his first few games of last season Enrique managed to get a man of the match award at the Emirates, in a 2-0 win, no less. He also provided a couple of assists throughout September and seemed to only go from strength-to-strength up until Christmas. But as the new year arrived and Liverpool’s league form started to falter, Enrique caught the same bug as a lot of our players and, following the League Cup win, just couldn’t seem to reach the same heights.
Many people may use the fact that, at the age of 26, Liverpool has been the biggest club he’s played for and that he spent time being loaned out back in Spain and in the Championship with Newcastle. He also hasn’t been capped yet by Spain, but given the quality of some of the Spaniard’s, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Alvaro Arbeloa had to move to Real Madrid before he even got a taste of the national squad, despite several good seasons with Liverpool and I’d expect the same thing to happen if Enrique ever made that particular move.
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We shouldn’t forget the first 6 months of last season though, when he was effectively one of the best 3 full-backs in the league. Players are allowed to lose form; the only problem these days is that fans are much less forgiving when they do. So when a player is out of form for a prolonged period, fans often become very forgetful about the qualities they’ve displayed in the past.
That, however, doesn’t explain why the Spanish defender is now only second choice left-back, to a right-back! I think that Glen Johnson is a great stand-in and he never looks uncomfortable when he’s on the left, but choosing him above Enrique makes little sense tactically. I know that Enrique was out of form throughout the final few months of last season and has struggled at the start of this season but I really think it’s unfair to judge him on what little game time he has had.
The majority of his appearances this season have come in the cups, when he is often playing in a much changed line-up, or the odd 20 minute here and there in the league. So it raises the question about whether Rodger’s feels he fits into his system, or whether there are further issue with the player behind the scenes. In can’t be an issue of form, as the manager’s shown already that he is patient with out-of-form players (Borini, Skrtel, Reina) provided he feels they are adapting well. And given that Enrique has had a few injuries and barely played, it makes you wonder whether there’s something else going on.
I won’t deny for a second that I am a big fan of the left-back – I think he is a great player and has the potential to get even better, if he’s allowed to, so I’m hoping that rumours of training ground problems aren’t true. Though, even if they were, Rodgers has already shown that he doesn’t allow off-field disagreements to get in the way of his selection policy (see the Sterling dressing down as an example).
My only conclusion is that it must just be a case of other players taking their chances and Jose being unlucky with injuries so far. Because if we can get the full-back fighting fit and back into form, he would add so much to the attacking side of the new manager’s ‘tiki-taka’ and Johnson can get back to doing what he does best on his natural side.
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Enrique hasn’t got in the team cos he’s struggling with an injury at the moment, he has been given pain killing injections into his knee for the past 2 weeks to try clear up the problem, it’s nothing to do with Enriques ability at all, he’s one of the best left backs in the league
Hopefully Enrique will work past his knee problem soon. Some of LFC’s best football last season was when, on the rare occasion Kenny would play them together, Enrique played tik-taka with Maxi and Suarez on the left side. That said, he, like Johnson, have to be mindful of their defensive duties.
Although a very good defender, Enrique sometimes dwells on the ball as if to show the opponent he cant be pushed off it, resulting in valuable time or losing the opportunity for a quick pass into the centre.
Its simple, Enrique just hasn’t been good enough when given his chance this season. We need performing players. KD lost his job because of sticking to players who were not performing… Everyone deserves to be in the team on merit, not their former achievements otherwise even Downing had his good moments only for Suarez and Carroll to squander them. I believe when Enrique proves himself in training, Rogers won’t hesitate but judging by the 90min performance against Young Boys, not yet!
He lost two yards of pace last season after an apparently minor injury. He used to be a teenage sprint champ and was never beaten for pace, but now he is clearly middling in terms of pace.
Don’t understand it, but I have a feeling that pace is never coming back and Rogers has spotted it. Maybe he tore a meniscus and was treated medically instead of surgically. That can limit the first five yards.