Lacklustre Liverpool meander toward Europa qualification

I sat disbelieving and even embarrassed by the ineptitude of Liverpool’s performance against Aston Villa last week at Wembley.    It was woeful, truly grotesque to be in the stadium to witness a Liverpool team perform which no guile, passion and the club byword class was missing in all areas.

I turned up to the Hawthorns expecting to see a revitalised Liverpool champing at the bit, hoping to erase the bitter memory of being so readily out played and dismissed by a dominant Villa side.

The Hawthorns reverberated before kick-off to the sound of Carl Orff’s stirring Carmina Burana.  It’s a piece of music that stokes the fires of ambition and looking across at the big screen in the corner showing the players in the tunnel the players looked buoyed behind Gerrard who seemed transfixed steering ahead as if ready to grab an expectant three points.

The expectant further disappeared after kick-off just as fast as it had at Wembley.   Unable to gain a foothold in the game with Gerrard playing so deep it was difficult to decipher whether he had started at centre-half or in the defensive midfield position, marshalled so superbly on our winning run by the injured Lucas Leiva.

Emre Can given licence to roam from his position as the right-centre back into midfield was energetic, but failed to find the quality ball to release Ibe, Coutinho and Sterling and the much criticised Mario Balotelli.  If ever a match proved that Mario Balotelli’s shelf-life had finally reached its sell by date this was it.  Unfortunately for the player, he is incapable of leading the front-line, often finding himself in less attacking areas and not in the key area when the ball arrives in the box.

Liverpool had two decent chances with Jordon Ibe coming close drifting in from the left, to play a one two with Balotelli before seeing his left-foot shot smash against the bar while Philippe Coutinho   drew an excellent diving save from Boaz Myhill which was as good as it got for us.

Rodgers is correct is his insertion that the injuries to Daniel Sturridge have certainly hindered Liverpool’s challenge for a Champions League place, but in the cold light of day what has really killed us is his lack of success in the transfer market.   When it became apparent that Suarez would leave in the summer there was enough time to get a quality replacement, but we failed ignominiously in our pursuit of Sanchez and in the end we were left with the not so hot ‘Super Mario’.

Brendan states that the club has to find a way of luring top class talent to Anfield, but the question is should FSG trust him with anymore funds?  In essence, of the 24 players brought in by Brendan during his time at the club only Coutinho and Sturridge can considered anything like a success.

The club’s top goal scorer in the Premiership is not one of the four strikers brought in by the manager which is some indictment

He seems to be possess a retrograde memory in not mentioning that fact as if no blame should be attributed to him.  Daniel Sturridge was injured twice last season, but with Suarez having an all-star season it tended to be glossed over, but his injury record and Rodgers preference to play his free-flowing style of football has basically relegated Rickie Lambert to a bit part player.  

On the way home on the train , I read out to my fellow Reds Karl (Livi), David (dedlfc) and Billy (TrueRed01), the full list of the LFC Transfer Committee: Ian Ayre, Barry Hunter (Chief Scout), Dave Fallows (Head of Recruitment), Michael Edwards (Director of Technical Performance) and Mike Gordon(FSG Investor).  Almost in unison, as I announced each individual outside of Ian Ayre and almost in unison they said “who the f**k is he!?!”

It’s an interesting point because at West Brom we lacked fire power and had the exposed Glen Johnson replacing Moreno at left-wing back.  Just how can Liverpool be lacking in the areas of full-back, central midfield and upfront after bringing in no fewer than 9 players in the summer transfer window.

A year ago in an interview with Sports Illustrated, Ian Ayre stated that the Transfer Committee’s role was to bring together individuals from different areas (the manager, Chief Scout and the Head of Recruitment), which combined would be make-up the role of Director of Football which meant that Brendan Rodgers would not be the sole decision-maker, although he would have a big say.

Ayre said, “We have a head of analysis, a head of recruitment, a first-team manager, myself. All of those people are all inputting into a process that delivers what a director of football would deliver.

“What we believe, and we continue to follow, is you need many people involved in the process. That doesn’t mean somebody else is picking the team for Brendan but Brendan needs to set out with his team of people which positions we want to fill and what the key targets would be for that.

"He has a team of people that go out and do an inordinate amount of analysis work to establish who are the best players in that position.

If we are to raise are game in the transfer market the bar will have to be elevated in spectacular fashion in terms of their willingness to pay top fees.  Brendan doesn’t possess the cache of a Louis van Gaal, Jose Marinho or Arsene Wenger and we look certain to be without Champions League football, thus it’s either a willingness to pay larger transfer fees or to continue with the long-term plan and hope that we can get success by bucking the trend.

The problem with that philosophy is that the four teams above us at the moment are not about to stand still and if proof were required of just how much money talks, Man United’s outlay in the summer in spending £150 million has brought instant rewards in almost certainly returning the club to the Champions League fold after only a seasons absence.

Brendan built an almost guru like perception around himself with his assertion that he cajoled and drove Suarez to reach his sublime heights, hence the positivity around the acquisition of Mario Balotelli.  What he did do was provide the atmosphere around Suarez and his team to free-wheel with an attacking verve unhindered by any thought of defence which arguably may have cost us when it mattered most once injuries and suspensions began to set in.

In his three years he is correct that Liverpool have moved on under his stewardship, but any Liverpool manager given three years in his position would expect to move forward or he’d be looking for new employment.  Coutinho, Sterling and the injury hit Sturridge have certainly been successes under his tenure, but there have certainly been glaring misses this season from the formation changes against Villa to the resounding failures against the ‘Big Four’ which include losing twice to Man Utd and being demolished by Arsenal.

A good middle of the season doesn’t equate to a great season and for me Liverpool have fallen short of the required standard and at the Hawthorns resembled no more than an average side hoping that the exceptional talents of Ibe, Coutinho or Sterling would pull us out from under.

With Man United’s loss at Goodison Park we may just live to regret the failure to grab three points.  The aim must be for us to us to finish as strongly as we can to at least put pressure on Man Utd and to bolster confidence going forward.

Man of the match: Philipe Coutinho looked to probe at every opportunity and almost provided the break through.

Steven Gerrard in his 500^th League game asserted even less influence than he had at Wembley with only Jordon Ibe aside from Coutinho looking likely.

Critcal eye:  Brendan Rodgers comments suggest he is not seeing the failures, not just in his transfers, particularly his strikers, but in his side falling away since the Man United defeat.  Blackburn provided the initial template to breakdown the Rodgers winning formula in the FA Cup tie at Anfield, Swansea made it work before for a half, before Man Utd applied the breaks.

It sounds almost pathetic when he keeps stating how much the team misses Suarez and how unlucky we have been with injuries particularly with Sturridge.  He’s had two windows to plug holes in his squad and they made the decision not to buy anyone in January, so the blame lays firmly at his feet, but he will be given time and he and the Transfer Committee must buy well in the next transfer window for Liverpool’s immediate future or we could be away from the Champions League for another five years and that would be unfathomable.

Manager’s comments:

It’s going to be very difficult now to make the Champions League. 

“With five games remaining, we certainly need to win four at least. That’s what we must aim to do to give ourselves a chance.

“You never know what might happen above us though. What we have to do right now is make sure that we keep the pressure on.

“We have our game in hand this week and the important thing is that we win that one.”

“If you take 52 goals out of our team, then it doesn’t help you.”

“We just don’t score as many goals, it’s as simple as that. In every other way we have played well, but we just lacked that bit of luck and bit of quality in the final third.

“That is something that we will have to look at in the summer, for sure.

“Our intent was to win the game, but you have to give credit to West Brom, they defended very well, as you’d expect of Tony Pulis’ team.

“In the first half, the idea was very good, but we were a bit slow. Second half was much better, but we just couldn’t find the final pass, the final touch which makes the difference.”

“The feeling of disappointment was there early on in the week, of course, but in top level sport, you’ve got to move on from it.”

“We deserved the result last weekend after our performance, so today it was important to at least perform well and I felt that we did that. The attitude and the effort was there, the creativity too.”

Teams:

West Brom: 13 Myhill, 25 Dawson, 23 McAuley, 6 Lescott, 11 Brunt, 8 Gardner, 5 Yacob, 24 Fletcher, 7 Morrison (Baird – 81 mins), 10 Anichebe (McManaman – 64 mins), 18 Berahino (Ideye – 75 mins)

Substitutes: 3 Olsson, 4 Baird, 9 Ideye, 16 Gamboa, 19 McManaman, 29 Sessegnon, 38 Rose

Liverpool: 22 Mignolet, 23 Can, 37 Skrtel, 6 Lovren, 2 Johnson, 14 Henderson, 8 Gerrard, 33 Ibe (Lallana – 75 mins), 10 Coutinho, 31 Sterling, 45 Balotelli (Borini – 75 mins)

Substitutes: 1 Jones, 4 K Toure, 19 Manquillo, 20 Lallana, 24 Allen, 29 Borini, 50 Markovic

Referee: Roger East

Attendance: 26,663