It’s fair to say that Brendan Rodgers hasn’t had the best of Daniel Agger. Since the Northern Irishman arrived, Agger has never really hit the heights that he reached under Rafa and Kenny Dalglish.
Even though he spent Rodgers’ inaugural campaign injury-free, the Dane almost seemed worse off for it. Of course, the entire squad struggled to adapt to Brendan’s philosophy in the beginning, but later on in the season it seemed like playing all those games was taking a toll on Agger, due to frequent lapses in concentration that led to him making mistakes at the back. More often than not, these led to goals.
For most of this season, his fortunes hadn’t really seemed too have changed too much. Though he was part of the defence that kept 3 clean sheets in the opening 3 games of the season, Agger eventually lost his place in the side to new signing Mamadou Sakho, and even found Skrtel ahead of him in the pecking order; though some have speculated that this is because Rodgers doesn’t like having two left-footed centre backs partnering each other. With a clear preference for Sakho, Rodgers left Agger on the bench for most of Autumn and Winter and fans felt resigned to the fact that Agger would be sold in the summer.
Fast forward a couple of months though and his fortunes seemed to have changed. After returning from injury before Sakho, Agger was put straight back into the starting line up after Kolo Toure’s recent horror show next to Skrtel against West Brom and Fulham. Even though his return was in the 2-1 defeat in the FA Cup to Arsenal and the following game saw him part of the defence that conceded 3 goals against Swansea, he’s shown a remarkable improvement in the two games since.
Southampton and Manchester United are arguably two of our most difficult away fixtures this season, and we kept clean sheets in both of them with two 3-0 wins. While our defence certainly struggled in the first half at St. Mary’s, it grew stronger in the second as we saw out the game, and while United didn’t offer a great deal going forward, Agger produced one of his most commanding performances to keep them out. Considering that in this fixture last season it was his lapse in concentration that led to Van Persie scoring, that’s a remarkable improvement.
As Rodgers plans for Champions League football next season, Agger’s experience in that competition will be vital. As a Rafa signing, his knowledge and advice will be incredibly beneficial to the likes of Sterling, Henderson, Allen and even Suarez and Sturridge who have only had limited appearances in the competition. If he keeps this form up to the end of the season, Rodgers will have no choice but to make him part of his plans to conquer Europe.
I certainly hope so, Josh. I think the defensive issues were more individual than collective and just needed time to be ironed out. We have a great set of central defenders at the club, they’ll never have as dodgy a 6 months as they’ve had this season and we’ll need Agger at the club for bigger challenges this and next season.
Yeah, the errors were definitely individual rather than the defence as a whole. I think unless we get a ridiculously good offer for him, Agger has to stay for experience alone. Especially if he keeps his form up.
I remember when Agger first came to lfc, he spent his first 2-3 seasons playing second fiddle to carra sammi and only really started to take ownership of his role at lfc in around 2008-2009 .
Since I personally thought he was thest centre back we’ve had for a long time. And the partnership he formed with skrtel was amazing .althou they couldn’t keep it up and had an amazing season in 2011 followed by a bad one in 2012 a non existant one in 2013 honestly I think in 2014 they will reknew their love affair at the back for lfc. A few weeks ago wrote a piece saying they would come good at this ‘last 10 game period’ , and I hope they keep it going.
Our title hopes certianly rests on the shoulders of Agger and skrtel, to name but a few.