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Rodgers Mustn’t Forget That Football Isn’t All About Attack

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2013 has gotten off to a good start for us Reds. The confirmed signing of transfer target Daniel Sturridge was followed by an Anfield night that produced an emphatic victory over Sunderland with Luis Suarez at his lethal best yet again.

He already has four more than his league tally last season and hopefully Rodgers’ plan to employ Sturridge centrally, pushing him (Suarez) a bit wider out, will have no effect on his breath-taking form this season.

A closer look at the names being linked to Anfield this January will tell you that Rodgers is looking to, and not without good reason, strengthen our attacking threat and create more options in the final third. What is worrying to me however is the seemingly abject neglect of our defence, not in the transfer market per se, but in general.

It goes without saying that in our most recent games against Villa and Stoke our defending was nightmarish at best, characterized by poor positioning and marking. Our woeful inability to cope with long balls, set piece situations and close down players who were drifting into space was sometimes baffling really.

Our net has bulged 26 times in the league this season and to very soft goals two-thirds of the time in my opinion. Some might suggest that a strong attack covers the tracks of a poor defence, like how Manchester United’s humongous tally of 54 goals has overshadowed the 28 they have conceded, and so solving our problems in attack is a defensive work-around but I still beg to differ. On a bad day in attack, which has become less than rare these past few seasons, a good defence is the only thing between walking away with a point or with nothing.

Wisdom, Coates, Flanagan and Robinson have been impressive in their outings this season, the former making sure that we haven’t missed Glen Johnson too much on the right side of defence and deserves more than a pat on the back for stepping to the plate the way he has. Inexperience is presumably the only thing keeping these young talents away from regular first team football, but is that reason good enough?
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Agger and Skrtel are a fantastic pair of centre-backs but just like Reina, I think lack of competition has made them a tad complacent. Both have been guilty of some horrendous errors and at times blatant unawareness. Downing succumbing to first-team football over positional preference means that we have a half-answer to Enrique’s six week absence but his power and strength will be sorely missed in the big games.

Even though the onus is on the back four most of the time, defence, just like attack, is a team effort and deserves as much emphasis in training sessions, regimes and tactical choices.

Rodgers must therefore take the hits for this. He has hammered on our lack of fire-power in games we lost or drew despite playing well in. What he should also notice is that our defensive frailty has had a hand in some results; being the main culprit for our draws with City and Everton for example and our loss at Stoke despite taking the lead very early on.

I’m not saying that our defending has been utterly poor this season, which is a conclusion I’m quite sure most anti-Rodgers Reds would be more than happy to jump to, I’m just pointing out that our attack would be much more potent and straight-forward if we didn’t feel susceptible to conceding whenever we are off the ball. But before that can happen we must have a solid defensive system in place. Attack may be the best form of defence, but when it fails, I believe we deserve to have more than thin ice to fall back on.
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