Liverpool 0 Sunderland 0: Gerrard fails to ignite mediocre Reds

Workmanlike is a good description of Liverpool right now.  Without Gerrard, rested for the club’s most important game of the season against Basle next Tuesday, Sterling and to a lesser degree Lallana and Coutinho provided patches of quality without the killer touch in the final third.

Liverpool now laid out not to concede with Lucas studiously protecting Toure and Skrtel shorn of the explosive front line of last season.   Lambert, manfully holding the frontline together, was starved of any decent supply, but for one cross his ex-Southampton team mate which he headed wide.

The lack of intensity which has so marked Liverpool season was again there from the start as Sunderland settled down to a comfortable rhythm, looking easy on the eye and dominating possession to such a level that they swallowed up 62 per cent of the ball in the first 20 minutes dominating the midfield with some slick interchange and movement and may have felt hard done by with a penalty claim as Wickham clashed with the ungainly Skrtel.

Sunderland’s game plan was to get amongst Liverpool doubling up on Sterling leading to a battle royal between the youngster and Virgini.  Liverpool struggled to break through the two banks of a well organised Sunderland defence.

If anything, the away team should have gone into the break one up with Liverpool once again ill at ease defending corners.  Brown stole in unchallenged to header over with the goal at his mercy.

If the Anfield faithful thought the second period would be a different story, Gus Poyet’s team had other ideas and had Conor Wickham not sliced his volley from Skrtel’s miscued headed clearance Sunderland would have taken a well-deserved lead.

Liverpool looked like a team devoid of confidence, belief and more importantly passion and it was no surprise to see Steven Gerrard warming up on the hour.   Sterling, cutting in from the left fed Lucas with an inviting chance from 20 yards, but the Brazilian’s shot was gathered far too easily low down by Pantilimon.  Given the time and space it was the type of chance which should been arrowing into the corner, but unfortunately Gerrard had yet to enter the fray.

Gerrard’s introduction saw a sudden induced level of performance which has been lacking throughout from the home team.   He stunning volleyed passed with check side spun inside the defender and into the path of Coutinho was from the Gerrard school of genius and no other player of the pitch could have thought let alone played the pass.

Sterling winning the ball in the left back position ran to the edge of the area taking on all comers before finding Coutinho whose shot was well saved by Pantilimon.

Sunderland were not finished with Gomez letting loose on a severe drive which Mignolet palmed away at full stretch.

Gerrard controlling the tempo mounted one last chance, spraying an inimitable cross field ball out to Sterling on the left, who in turn found Lambert on the far post to nod back to Markovic who saw his shot blocked, but unfortunately for Liverpool Gerrard just failed to connect with the loose ball to sweep it home.

Man of the Match:  Steven Gerrard – Quite simply Liverpool didn’t turn up until the skipper replaced Lallana and while another clean sheet cannot be sniffed at the lack of players in the home team capable of taking the game by the scruff of the neck is worrying.  Gerrard in his 23 minutes on the pitch played with guile, intensity and it seemed to me anger looking to run and take on defenders down the flanks.  Let’s hope that intensity runs into Tuesday.

The positive is another clean sheet, but under close scrutiny there is still a huge problem at corners and we were lucky not to concede.

The creative element leaves a lot to be desired with Lambert seeing very little quality providing him with scoring opportunities.  We failed to get a shot on target until Lucas shot in the 62 minute which says a lot about our cutting edge and to be fair Sunderland’s defensive resilience.

Brendan Rodgers post-match comments: "I thought the players gave everything and in the second half. They needed a wee bit of luck and it didn't come.

"If you can't win it's important you don't lose. We've taken seven points from nine this week which is a good return for us.

"Stevie coming on gave everyone a lift.  I thought him and Raheem were outstanding."

Teams: 

Liverpool: 22 Mignolet, 2 Johnson, 37 Skrtel, 4 K Toure, 18 Moreno, 14 Henderson, 21 Lucas, 20 Lallana (Gerrard – 67 mins), 10 Coutinho (Markovic – 78 mins), 31 Sterling, 9 Lambert

Subs: 1 Jones, 3 Jose Enrique, 6 Lovren, 8 Gerrard, 23 Can, 24 Allen, 50 Markovic

Sunderland: 1 Pantilimon, 27 Vergini, 16 O’Shea, 5 Brown, 15 Reveillere, 4 Bridcutt, 11 Johnson (Buckley – 79 mins), 7 Larsson (Cattermole – 70 mins), 14 Gomez, 10 Wickham, 17 Altidore (Alvarez – 70 mins)

Subs: 6 Cattermole, 8 Rodwell, 9 Fletcher, 20 Alvarez, 25 Mannone, 30 Buckley, 34 Robson

Referee: Neil Swarbuck

Attendance: 44, 716