by David Douglas dedlfc
With the sad departure of our club icon Kenny Dalglish after his second tenure, our owners have chosen the untested Brendan Rodgers to take the club to the next level.
His first tour to North America consisted of three games vs Toronto which ended in a 1-1 draw with Adam Morgan getting his first goal at senior level, a loss to Roma 2-1 with Charlie Adam getting a consolation goal and the final game of the tour ended with a 0-0 draw with our potential rivals for a top four spot next season Spurs.
In summary the tour for the merchandising and fan support side of the club was very successful and the fact that some of the younger members of our squad like Sterling, Suso and Morgan got a run out which will benefit the team long term.
The negative was the fact that we again had a lot of possession and chances but were unable to kill off teams - which was the story of last season.
We have said goodbye to two stalwarts of the squad, Dirk Kuyt and Maxi Rodriguez both will be sadly missed but we wish them both well at their new clubs.
We are also pleased to add to our squad Fabio Borini, a striker that Brendan Rodgers has worked with previously at Chelsea at youth level and at Swansea, we hope he is a total revelation and provides Suarez and Carroll with the support and goals needed to end up as high as possible in the league.
Our first competitive game took place in the Euro League away to Gomel from Belarus with such an early start it was to have been expected that Brendan Rodgers (also in his first game as LFC manager) would have rested some of the senior members of the squad to save them for the start of the new season in just over two weeks time.
But he chose several senior players to assist them with their fitness for the new season, such as Gerrard, Borini, Henderson, Skrtel, Johnson.
The other exciting thing about bringing in Rodgers is the fact that he bases his whole football philosophy on the world renowned tiki-taka (total football) 4-3-3 formation. This will take time to develop within the LFC squad but will be aided no doubt by the fact that Rodgers will be trying to bring to our club his able lieutenant Joe Allen from Swansea.
This Euro league also saw the return from a year long loan of Joe Cole desperate to prove he can be a success in our colours but his woeful luck in an LFC shirt continued in the early stages of the first half with a potential hamstring injury which resulted in the exciting talent Raheem Sterling getting to make his Euro debut for the club after only 24 minutes.
Gomel to their credit took the game to us for the majority of the game and were very unlucky not to be ahead of us by at least two goals at half time with Gerrard in particular struggling to adapt to the pace of the game after his successful Euro championships as England captain.
Jamie Carragher in his 700th appearance for us had to work harder than he had probably hoped to keep Gormel at bay, he was deservedly given the honour of captaining the side on the night and produced a solid performance.
With the side struggling to string a collection of passes together Rodgers made a tactical change just into the second half and brought on Martin Kelly for Glen Johnson to provide more attacking impetus and more solid defending.
The vital two moments of the game were first when our defensive midfield maestro Lucas Leiva finally made his competitive return from injury last year to provide the stability and control to the midfield which was clearly missing with Spearing and Henderson especially unable to cope with the fluidity of movement.
The second changed the whole game with again Sergei Kozeka smashing a shot against the post and Platonov amazingly rolling the rebound wide of an open goal. Within a minute Liverpool took the lead when Downing with limited options took a long gamble with his left foot from 25 yards. His shot flew past their keeper and gave us an undeserved but vital away win.
Brendan Rodgers will be pleased with the win but will look to the midfield to assert more control in the return leg next Thursday, it will also be interesting to see whether Sterling will get a run out as he again showed encouraging signs that he may now be ready to take the step up to first team football.
Man of the match:Jamie Carragher who produced a captain's defensive performance leading the troops to victory in his 700th game.
For those of us who went to the matches last season and had to sit through some of the most mediocre displays from a Liverpool side, Brendan Rodgers wish to get the team back playing some real football can only be applauded. Some of the stuff served up by Swansea last season was treat to behold and one can only hope the style of play can be adopted to the Liverpool system as asap.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I whole heartedly endorse Rodgers foresight, I slightly perturbed with blinkered approach in terms of this being the only style of play because Barcelona have patented it. No doubt, if you have Messi, Iniesta and Xabi as the fulcrum of your team executing your plans will come off nine times out of ten. But, even Barca came out stuck last season, not only against Chelsea in the Champions League, but against other teams not willing to stand back and watch them dismantle defences.
The option of selling Andy Carroll is there to use the funds bring in more 'footballing talent', but what Carroll offers is an ability to change the formation at the drop of a hat from a pass and move formation to that of a more direct threat should the need arise and flexibility should be encompassed in all squads, as I say unless the club is hindered by financial constraints or as I say has sublime talent at its disposal.
Man City's final game of their Premiership winning season was a case in point. Up to the final few minutes the gifted play of Silva and Nasri had failed to break down the resolute defence of QPR, but it was the aerial threat of Edin Dzeko which brought then back into the game with the equaliser. Carroll may not possess the subtle skills of Luis Suarez, but as he showed towards the close of last season he is not just a one-trick pony either, devastating John Terry not just with his power, but with his dexteriety.
Rodgers should be careful with his statements about Liverpool, taking three or four years to be in a position to win the Premiership. While that maybe true, whether the likes of Agger, Skrtel and ultimately Suarez will wait that long is open to debate and it has come as no surprise that given their age Liverpoo, are struggling to arguably the best defensive pairing in the League.
It's also why our transfer policy, has got to be right, i.e. bringing in real quality and that young plays like Suso and Sterling have to be given their heads in the first team rather than losing their way just as the Pancheco seems to have done, although hopefully he is young enough to come again.
Brendan Rodgers is making the right noises. I just hope that we can, as Steven Gerrard suggests, break into the top four as we cannot afford another season of failure in the Premiership.