Suso and Sterling need time but Liverpool need goals

The recent news that Fabio Borini is out for a few months with an injury couldn't have come at a worse time for Liverpool. While the Italian has only scored once this season, his absence means that the Reds now have just one senior striker in Luis Suarez to see them through until the January transfer window opens. It is time for the rest of team to start chipping in with some goals to ease the burden on the mercurial Uruguayan, but with two of the three forward positions currently being taken up by inexperienced teenagers Raheem Sterling and Spanish starlet Suso, is that a realistic proposition?

It has to be assumed that, form and fitness permitting, from now until January at least, Suso and Sterling will be playing regularly in the Premier League for the Reds in two of the three forward positions that Brendan Rodgers selects. The only viable replacements for their starting positions right now are Oussama Assaidi, Stewart Downing and Joe Cole. Assaidi has been understandably hit and miss so far as he tries to get up to speed with English football. This leaves Downing and Cole. The funny thing is that given their age, pedigree, experience and expense to the club, Cole and Downing should be in the starting eleven every week for Liverpool with the likes of Suso and Sterling providing the back up rather than the other way round.

Suso doesn't look like a regular goalscorer yet

Cole should be ahead of Suso in the pecking order given his standing in the game and what he has accomplished, but his woeful injury record, lack of any match fitness what so ever and his form when compared to Suso's, suggests that the former England international will have to be content with being understudy to the kid from Cadiz who is 12 years his junior. On the opposite flank of Liverpool's attacking trio, it is equally hard to see Downing displacing Sterling despite his extra experience in the Premier League and his numerous England caps. Downing should be a prominent player for Liverpool right now. He cost £20m, he is in the prime of his career, he has scored goals for his previous clubs on a fairly regular basis and Liverpool need goals and experience desperately at this moment. However, he has proven himself so unwilling to take responsibility in a red shirt that it is inconceivable that he could start ahead of Sterling in the first team as things stand. It is a damning indictment on two players in their prime who have cost Liverpool so much money, that two relatively unknown kids are who the goal scoring burden for such a large club is now going to fall on. The reds need goals and regardless of age, lots of people are going to expect them from players in the forward positions.

Sterling has shown at youth level that he can score regularly from wide areas and even scored for the first team in pre season. This season in the Premier League though, he has only attempted 3 shots, which were all off target. It's easy to expect that as his confidence and experience continue to grow, his efforts at goal will become more frequent and accurate, but regular goals in the senior side still seem a way off.

Suso, since his introduction to the first team, has shown that keeps the ball exceptionally well and is technically proficient but goals or even serious attempted shots have evaded him for the most part. He has though, only played 171 Premier League minutes so far and to judge his potential as a goal scorer on such a small sample isn't fair. However, when we look at his record at reserve level, he scored just 8 times in the last two seasons and that does not suggest that we can expect a regular stream of goals from him either. In short, neither of the two young prodigies seem likely to to enrich the current Liverpool team with an influx of goals in the near future. But that really isn't their fault.

Sterling has the potential to add goals to his game, given time

It is unfortunate for Suso and Sterling that because of the circumstances they find themselves in, pressure is going to be on them almost immediately to provide Liverpool with a decent number of goals. In an ideal world, both teenagers would be introduced into the first team in a way that would limit the pressure on them. Playing the odd Premier League game and making appearances in the League Cup and Europa League is presumably how Brendan Rodgers would have preferred to acclimatise his two young stars to the trials of first team football. However, because of the failings of players like Downing and Cole, the injuries to players like Borini and the lack of summer signings, Suso and Sterling are now not only players that Liverpool fans will expect to see in the team every weekend, but a pair of players who will be expected to get on the score sheet.

This is the downside to seeing such exciting talent emerge at Anfield these days. Suso and Sterling need to be playing free of pressure and allowed to express themselves without the burden of the teams results weighing too heavily on their inexperienced shoulders. Instead, these two rookies will have major expectations from the clubs fans almost right away. It is not ideal and it could be detrimental to their progress if too much is demanded too soon.

Even Cristiano Ronaldo wasn't a prolific goal scorer as a teenager

Cristiano Ronaldo scored just 3 goals in his début season at Sporting Lisbon and in his first Premier League season he only scored 4 goals in 29 appearances for Manchester United. Andres Iniesta at Barcelona scored 2 goals in his first 2 full seasons despite making 70 starts in La Liga for the Catalan giants. Ronaldo now scores a goal a game and Iniesta scores between 5 and 10 a season. End product is seldom consistently evident in young attacking players and while Reds fans are desperate for their team to starting winning and scoring goals, frustrations must not be aimed at 2 talents who need nurturing.

If goals are still at premium over the coming weeks and months then the blame will lie with whoever's decision it was not to bring in an experienced striker to replace Andy Carroll. The blame will lie with under performing expensive players who have scored goals in the past but now seem happy to sit on the side lines and pick up their wages. The blame may even lie with the managers tactics. But the blame should not be attributed to a pair of talented kids who are finding their feet in the Premier League. Patience is a virtue, after all.  

Tony Pulis - The Capped Crusader

There has been much hysteria on these shores this past week about cheating in football. Luis Suarez's latest theatrics have sparked outrage in the English football world again. People want the cheats like Suarez to be punished. Or rather, they want people who cheat in a way that is seen as under handed to be punished. Because after all, cheating in an obvious manner that doesn't include falling over an imaginary leg or exaggerating contact in the penalty area is infinitely more palatable in England.

Football is, always has been, and always will be, a game where cheating is not just omnipresent, but pretty much a pre-requisite. Examine any game of football at any level and the number of times the rules are broken will be exhaustive. You will see players appealing for corners and throw ins when they know they have kicked the ball out of play themselves, players pulling shirts and 'tactically' fouling with no other intention than to stop their opponents scoring, time wasting from players when their team are wining a match, the list goes on and on. So why is all this seen as acceptable and 'part of the game' while a dive is seen as the ultimate sin?

In this country we love nothing more than throwing tomatoes at the pantomime villains who are seen waving their imaginary cards, falling to the ground when people breathe on them and exhibiting their Tom Daley style double pikes (providing they are from shores afar, of course). It is to be cherished then, that we have a man who stands up for the integrity of the English game whenever he must and embodies the English resistance to underhand tactics that people like Luis Suarez exhibit. A man whose love for the beautiful game is matched only by his hatred for those who attempt to soil it with their dishonest ways. Step forward Tony Pulis.

The Capped Crusader 

Just a couple of weeks back after his team had been beaten by Chelsea, Stoke City manager Pulis was demanding that Chelsea players be retrospectively punished for diving. He unleashed a tirade during his post match press conference about how simulation was damaging the game and how those at fault must face the consequences. It is cheating and it is wrong, he claimed. He made a stand. He stuck by his principles and let the wider world know that he was against cheating in football and wanted the authorities to back him up. He put himself up there as a pioneer for the integrity of football. After reading his comments, something came to my mind. I remembered that Pulis' team had benefited from a piece of cheating just a week earlier. I decided to investigate and see what this bastion of truth and justice had made of this indiscretion from one of his own. Surely he condemned the action from the offending Stoke player and kept true to his principles? Not quite.....

Against Manchester City, 7 days before Pulis laid into Chelsea players for cheating, his striker Peter Crouch scored a goal against the champions that was preceded by two obvious hand balls. Essentially, Crouch cheated by controlling the ball with his hand twice and got away with it. Tony Pulis' reaction when questioned about the illegal goal that earned his side a valuable point? "I've been told Crouchy handled ball - if we've got a decision go our way I'm delighted." Not quite the same levels of righteous indignation there from the Stoke manager, eh? Come on Tony! Mind you, the club crested capped crusader has redoubled his efforts since then so let's not judge him too harshly just yet, for Pulis was at it again this weekend.

Pulis' team we're away at Liverpool on Sunday and Tony sent his Stoke side out on to the turf at Anfield with the primary objective to consistently disrupt the game of football that their hosts so desperately wanted to partake in. This was achieved by any means necessary including monotonous, cynical fouls from most of his players, Robert Huth stamping on Luis Suarez's chest and unfathomable amounts of time wasting from his goal keeper that resulted in a £25,000 fine for his club for accumulating 6 yellow cards (and referee Lee Mason could and should have dished out a lot more). It was, as most games involving Stoke City are, depressing fare. Content with his teams hard earned point, Pulis again got on his soap box after the match to protest about the cheating that is spoiling the game of football.

This is okay, diving isn't

He condemned Luis Suarez for diving to try and win a penalty for Liverpool and demanded that the Uruguayan be punished for it. To Tony it seems that diving is the cardinal sin, but cynically chopping down opposition players whenever they are mounting an attack or pulling shirts inside the penalty area is just part of the game. Maybe he is right. After all, we didn't see endless replays of John Walters nearly breaking Glen Johnson in half with a mid air assault this weekend, did we? And the F.A didn't ban Robert Huth for stamping on the chest of an opposition player, did they? And no penalty was awarded to Martin Skrtel when his Stoke City marker nearly tore the shirt off his back at Anfield, was it? Instead we've had an inquest into what a massive, ungodly cheat Luis Suarez (the guy who is lucky to have his ribs in tact this weekend after being stamped on) is again because he took a dive that he quite correctly didn't receive a penalty for.

It would be easy to dismiss Pulis as just another hypocritical football manager but in reality, he is more than that. Pulis embodies the English mentality when it comes to football. Cheating is fine unless the perpetrator attempts to disguise it. That's sly. That's a foreign thing. And we don't like it.