No room in January for previous transfer errors

THE moment that Liverpool looked to have lost the second of their almost impossible Christmas double-header against Chelsea came as Brendan Rodgers looked to his bench and considered which of his substitutes choose.

With Joe Allen having to be withdrawn through injury – further limiting the manager’s options going forward – he cast his eye over summer signings Iago Aspas and Luis Alberto and opted for 16 year old Brad Smith.

Many questioned why the manager would choose to bring on an untried 16 year old when there are two relatively established attacking options sitting on the bench and, at that time, what Liverpool needed was more options going forward in a game that Chelsea and their unattractively negative manager were attempting to close out.

Much ire was directed at Smith at the final whistle and, while he didn’t cover himself in glory, I suspect that the real frustration was intended for the man who had brought him onto the pitch. Because while Liverpool had once again suffered at the hands of a terrible, terrible, terribly biased referee, the manager’s initial team selection – and substitutions – cost Liverpool a possible point.

Many have been calling for Agger’s return in recent weeks (usually with baseless arguments, centering around the fact that they like Dan Agger more than Martin Skrtel because he has YNWA tattooed on his knuckles – rant over) but they probably hadn’t meant to bring him in at left-back and I, myself, was baffled at this decision.

I can thoroughly understand that Rodgers feels the need to give Agger game-time, or risk losing his vice captain, but surely the relatively easy (by comparison) run of games in January would be the prime-time for that, not starting the centre-back as a left-back in an already shaky back line?

Cissokho had a decent game filling in for Flanagan against Manchester City, and given he was on the bench, it is strange that Rodgers would choose Agger to take his place. Against Chelsea the whole defence was at sea in the first half, with the presence of a centre-back at left-back completely unbalancing the back four.

Johnson has just about reached the point where anybody is a preferred option so we really don’t need to go about making things more difficult.

The argument, of course, could be made for Johnson that without proper competition – particularly in light of Kelly’s persistent lack of fitness – he doesn’t feel the need to be at the top of his game regularly.

Added to the rather strange choice to start Agger at left-back and persist with the woefully out of form Johnson, bringing on a youngster with barely any experience ahead of a host of experienced alternatives has to make you wonder what Rodgers was really hoping to achieve on Sunday night.

At the heart of all of these squad, performance and form issues though, is the transfer policy and some serious questions need to be asked about it, such as: why doesn’t Glen Johnson have competition at right-back? Why do we have 6 first-team centre-backs, when we can only play two at a time? And why is our midfield bereft of any options if we lose one of Gerrard, Allen, Henderson and Lucas?

It is pretty clear that Martin Kelly has fitness issues and it has also become obvious that Rodgers doesn’t fancy either Enrique or Cissokho too much, so why was either a left or right back not made a priority in the summer? I say ‘either’ because I understand we’re not really in a position to be splashing out in all areas in one window.

But given that we had two top centre-backs – and Seba Coates and Andre Wisdom –  and brought in Toure in the summer, why did we go ahead and spend money on two more when we needed quality in other areas? I know we’re all quietly content with Sakho so far and Ilori will probably prove to be a good signing but when your spending is limited you have to make it count!

No more so is that a fact than in the case of Aspas and Alberto – two players that Rodgers appears to have little-to-no faith in whatsoever, because why else would he have opted to bring on a 16 year old, with no first-team experience in one of our biggest games of the season at a pivotal point in the game?

It shows a worrying trend, I’m afraid.

Many have said following the last two games against Chelsea and Man City that the club’s owners really have to back Rodgers in January and give him money to spend but the manager has had money to spend. Nobody can doubt the quality of the signings of Coutinho and Sturridge but in pretty much all of Rodgers other signings the jury is still out or has returned a very negative verdict.

A quick look over those names: Allen, Alberto, Aspas, Ilori, Cissokho, Mignolet, Borini, Sakho, Toure – none have yet proven to have been an outstanding success. Some, such as Mignolet, Sakho, Toure and Allen have had their moments but I wouldn’t say that any have offered conclusive evidence that they’re the kind of players to take Liverpool to the next level.

Meanwhile, the rest have had too little game time to judge them fairly which either means that there are better players already in front of them or that the manager is not convinced that they offer anything better than what we’ve already got and in both cases that is a huge concern.

Rodgers has spoken often about ‘looking for the right type of player’ and how they will not be making any signings unless they are better than what we’ve already got and while Enrique, Sturridge and Gerrard are all currently out – and would undoubtedly give us a big boost in terms of squad and first-team quality – a look at our lack of depth of quality is very worrying.

When Rodgers arrived we already had a fairly small squad. That squad lacked sustained quality throughout and since his arrival Brendan has added enough good players – and improved some existing – to make Liverpool a very much improved team. What he also appears to have done though, is replace a lack of quality with players he doesn’t believe have improved the squad very much.

Up to this point I’m happy with the improvements the manager has made on the pitch and behind the scenes. He’s improved the club greatly from the bleak days of Hodgson and the hopeful days of Dalglish but he has also now raised hopes and with that comes responsibility – the responsibility to create sustained improvement and the only way to do that is to get it right in the transfer market.

When the January market opens on New Years day, Liverpool are likely to get straight to work. Make no mistake – Rodgers will be backed, just as Dalglish was before him and just as Rodgers himself was in the previous 3 windows but none have come with the kind of expectation that this one has.

After an incredible start to the season, we’ve come up against two of the favourites for the Premier League this season and we’ve narrowly missed out. A little more quality on our bench and on the pitch and we’d almost certainly be looking at a decent lead at the top of the table right now.

But given that we have 5 out of 6 of the top sides at home in the new year, our final standing in the Premier League is very much in our own hands and we need to make certain that we’re absolutely fully prepared for the next 19 matches.

We’re not rolling in cash like City and Chelsea; we can’t yet even compete with the Arsenal’s and Spur’s financially, but if we spend right and make the money count, a couple of quality additions in the next couple of weeks could make all the difference and suddenly our squad for the second-half of the season could see us continue to surprise ‘experts’ by maintaining our challenge at the top.