Sorry guys, false alarm! After our scintillating performance against Swansea last time out, I made the grievous error of writing that “we’re back”. In the first game of 2015 Liverpool presented us with fairly strong evidence that they are not in fact back in the form of a hugely disappointing 2-2 draw with bottom of the table Leicester. The dropped points leave us a sizeable seven points off 4th place, and casts huge doubts over our ability to finish in the top 4 this season.
In the understandable flood of emotion following the announcement that Steven Gerrard is to leave the club at the end of the season, nearly everyone seems to have forgotten that he has been extremely poor for (at a generous estimate) the last six months. Of course we should admire what he was in his prime and applaud his great service to our club, but what we should not do is persist in playing him out of sentimentality. His ‘legend’ status is the only thing getting him on the team sheet this season, and I would go as far as to say that it cost us the match yesterday. For the first time this campaign we fielded what I see to be our strongest back three: Sakho, Toure and Can. They all had reasonable games – Sakho in particular was superb – and would surely have been capable of holding on to a two goal lead had they received even a small level of cover from the defensive midfielders. As it was, Gerrard’s total lack of mobility meant that the back three were constantly exposed; essentially, he was a wasted player in the line-up. Had Rodgers opted for the same team that won at Swansea, we’d probably have won.
Source: liverpoolfc.com
It wasn’t just the line-up that Rodgers got wrong. His in-game switches were bizarre; Borini came on for the injured Lallana just after half time, when Markovic would surely have been both better suited to the position and more capable of making an impact. At 2-2 he made another odd change. We needed a goal, so he decided to take off Moreno for Lambert. This was nonsensical for multiple reasons. Firstly, and most simply, Lambert is painfully ineffectual and has not once made a notable impact as a substitute. Secondly, the whole point of buying Lambert was a ‘Plan B’ that allowed us to whip crosses into the box – Moreno is our quickest wide player, and would have been the ideal candidate for getting down the flank and putting crosses in towards Lambert. These decisions alone cannot take all off the blame for the failure to get a win, but they certainly played a part.
A very strong case can be made that Liverpool deserved absolutely nothing from the game. Both of their goals were penalties, the first of which was definitely given incorrectly. Jeffrey Schlupp slid in to block Sterling’s cross and the ball struck his face – the referee deemed it to have struck his arm and pointed to the spot. Admittedly Schlupp shouldn’t have gone to ground with his arms spread out, but it wasn’t a handball. The second penalty definitely hit a hand – Simpson’s to be precise – but he had very little time to react and move his hand out of the way. It is clear, therefore, that Liverpool can count themselves lucky to come out of a home fixture against 20th place Leicester with a point; this is indeed a sorry state of affairs.
Source: liverpoolfc.com
To conclude, if Brendan Rodgers wants even a distant chance of guiding Liverpool into the top 4, he has to make the brave call of dropping Gerrard in his final half season. We saw at Swansea what we can achieve without him in the team, and we saw yesterday how little he contributes when he is in the side. The article that celebrates the achievements and service of the legend that is Steven Gerrard will surely be on its way, but this is not the time for sentimentality. This is the time for cold, hard realism, and if Rodgers doesn’t show that same level of realism then we can wave goodbye to our hopes of Champions League football next season.
James Martin
Latest posts by James Martin (see all)
- A Pressing Concern - February 8, 2021
- Manchester City 1-1 Liverpool: Did Klopp’s formation gamble pay off? - November 10, 2020
- The big Premier League preview Part Two – The bottom half - September 10, 2020