Gerrard, Sakho, Cou and Henderson...Questions and Answers

Liverpool's 5-0 demolition job at White Hart Lane provided Liverpool fans with much to savour and a few things to ponder. Below I take a look at what Sunday's match proved and what lies around the corner for Liverpool.

Liverpool can cope without Gerrard against top sides

Joe Allen, Lucas Leiva and Jordan Henderson don’t have the same quality as Steven Gerrard. Nor do they posses the same levels of experience. Individually none are likely to achieve close to what the Liverpool skipper has in his career. That said, the midfield trio showed that took to the field against Spurs showed that what they do posses as a group is the one thing that Gerrard lacks these days: Dynamism.

Against better sides this season, Gerrard has copped some criticism. He’s looked immobile and unable to press effectively against teams looking to get on the front foot against the Reds. It’s a fair assessment that he’s struggled when placed in central midfield against the likes of Arsenal, Everton and Southampton. Those three sides in particular, got the best of Gerrard and his impact from open play on those matches was minimal. Brendan Rodgers’ preferred central midfield partnership of Lucas and his captain simply hasn’t have the physical qualities to cope in games against Champions League chasing rivals.

Against Spurs, Allen, Lucas and Henderson’s ability to hound Paulinho, Dembele and Sandro (And Holtby when the Brazilian went off injured) was perhaps the most impressive aspect of Liverpool’s play. The pressure exerted by those midfield players allowed the Reds to get in Spurs’ face and press the home side back. They forced errors right from the start of the game when Henderson and Allen pressured Sandro into a mistake in just the second minute. That relentless pressure never dwindled and Spurs couldn’t cope with the perpetual movement and ball winning ability of the Liverpool trio. Undoubtedly, there was a dynamism against Spurs that was missing against the likes of Arsenal and co earlier in the season.

Gerrard is out for over a month

But can they cope without their skipper against the lesser sides?

Gerrard’s absence may well be more pronounced against Cardiff this weekend than it was against tougher opposition on Sunday. That may sound counter intuitive given Spurs’ obvious superiority when compared with the Welsh side, but when Liverpool are having large amounts of possession against teams intent on defending deep, Gerrard comes to the fore. His quality from open play and his delivery from set pieces gives Liverpool another attacking dimension against the lesser lights of the Premier League. His phenomenal technical ability is still evident when he is allowed time on the ball and has fewer defensive responsibility. Gerrard has unlocked plenty of stubborn defences this season already for Liverpool, contributing 6 assists. His passing is more penetrating than Allen, Lucas and Henderson’s and Liverpool will miss those qualities when they are playing against a less adventurous side than Spurs.

Liverpool dealt well with the absence of their captain against a Champions League rival on Sunday. Can they replace him effectively when they are faced with a smaller club who will likely come to Anfield and defend for their lives? We’ll soon find out.

Sakho should be first choice

Mamadou Sakho had a few iffy moments against Spurs. He gave one of the dodgiest back passes of the season to Simon Mignolet which almost cost Liverpool a goal and he also lost the ball a couple of times when attempting unnecessary dribbles. That said, his physical presence and utter dominance of the aerial ball demand that he be in the Liverpool starting eleven these days.

Sakho is called a beast by his team mates and you can see why. He’s a monster in the air. He rarely loses a header and he adds a much needed combative streak to Liverpool’s central defence. He clearly relishes a scrap. On the ball he is generally very good also, at least when he’s not trying to go on a mazy down field. His passing is accurate, crisp and decisive and he seems at ease when in possession. One back heel in his own area at the weekend showed in no uncertain terms  that he doesn’t lack for confidence with the ball at his feet.

Sakho seems to be Liverpool best centre back right now

Given the type of player Sakho appears to be though, mistakes will undoubtedly occur. He’s a proactive defender rather than reactive. To draw an analogy from Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher’s excellent debate on the art of defending, Sakho is more of a David Luiz than a John Terry. He constantly looks to nip in in front of a striker to win the ball and will back himself in a one on one battle every time. Where other defenders would retreat, he will attack. When that goes wrong it will look bad, but the fact is that Sakho dominates most of his opponents and is giving Liverpool’s back line some much needed steel that should remain.

Coutinho: Understated but vital

Philippe Coutinho hasn’t quite shone as brightly yet this season as he did last term. There just haven’t been as many of those jaw dropping individual performances from him so far. Against Spurs, players like Jordan Henderson, Luis Suarez and Raheem Sterling clearly outshone him in terms of individual brilliance. That said, Coutinho remains a fulcrum of Rodgers’ side. Rightly so. His ball retention when up against Kyle Walker, a tough opponent, was exceptional on Sunday. Time and again he ran with the ball and despite a lack of eye catching contributions, he was still fundamental to Liverpool’s victory. His persistent movement infield and in wider areas tormented Spurs and created vast amounts of space for Suarez and Henderson in particular to exploit.

He is obviously a key player for opposing sides to focus on this season and he’s getting less time and space to weave his magic, but his touch for Jordan Henderson’s goal showed that his quality endures. It was an exquisite lay off that went largely unnoticed, probably because such brilliance is now expected of the Brazilian. He’s not quite firing on all cylinders yet but, despite a hard time with niggling injuries and more attention from opponents, he is still contributing effectively to the side. Now that he’s over his injury and playing more regularly, it is surely only a matter of time before he truly ignites once more.

Henderson’s coming out party

On Sunday the rest of the country finally seemed to come to the same realisation that has been dawning on Liverpool fans for the past 12 months: Jordan Henderson isn't an £18m flop, he’s actually a very impressive footballer. His performance in north London was undoubtedly Henderson’s most effective and eye catching display in a red shirt. He was a force of nature that overwhelmed Spurs with his lung bursting bursts forward, his accurate passing and his persistent pressing.

Henderson is playing well but is there more to come?

In truth, he’s displayed all of those talents many times for Liverpool already, but he’s never married them all together as splendidly as he did on Sunday. When Luis Suarez bags two goals and three assists and still loses out on the man of the match award to you, you know you’ve delivered big time. The challenge now for Henderson, who has started every league game for the Reds this season, is to maintain this level. He’s been good for Liverpool for a year or so now and his place in the side is no longer in question. His improvement to this point has been marked and it must continue. He can add more goals to his game. His passing can become consistently more incisive and perceptive, as demonstrated on Sunday when he was spraying 40 yard passes to Philippe Coutinho without even looking. Henderson has transformed himself into a very good player, he can go even further and, given his desire and commitment, who would back him not to?

Luis Suarez - The best of the lot?

‘I’m starting to dislike Suarez. He’s making ex-Liverpool strikers look less impressive every time he plays’ said Robbie Fowler last night. He’s right.

Suarez will never be as loved as Fowler or a Kenny Dalglish. He’ll never have the longevity of Ian Rush and he probably won’t win close to as many trophies at Liverpool as those illustrious forwards did. But this doesn’t change the fact that he is one of the greatest players to ever grace the Anfield turf.

Last night, no superlatives could do justice to what the Uruguayan produced. Ridiculous, supreme, phenomenal, outrageous….take your pick, none will suffice.

Suarez, in general play, wasn’t at his best last night, as scary as that is to believe. He misplaced most of his passes in the first quarter of an hour and he’s certainly produced more dribbles, nutmegs and body swerves in previous games than he did against the Canaries. He’s tormented defences far more over the past few years than he did under the lights on December 4th. Despite that, it remains difficult to remember a striking performance punctuated with so many moments of such outlandish brilliance occurring at Anfield.

There were three moments of genuine inspiration and one of technical striking at it’s best. The first came when a ball bounced up forty yards from the Kop goal. This was to be no hit and hope. Suarez saw John Ruddy off his line and lashed the ball exactly where he wanted it to go - the top corner of the net. The second was a near post poachers goal from a set piece but technically brilliant. Not a goal to take the breath away perhaps, but one that Fowler, Rush et al would have more than approved of.

Then came the coup de grace. Picking up another difficult bouncing ball 30 yards out and with four defenders around him, Suarez ambled forward, flicked the ball over Leroy Fer, feigned to shoot as defenders panicked and backed off him and then unleashed a half volley that was hit as well as any at Anfield since Steven Gerrard’s strike against Olympiakos. When that went in Suarez jogged backwards with a sheepish grin and raised his hands to his face, seemingly embarrassed by what he had done. The icing on the cake came with yet another powerful, swerving and perfectly placed free kick at the Anfield Road end. Trademark Suarez but still utterly brilliant.

Another match ball for Luis Suarez courtesy of Norwich City

It was a quartet of goals that will take a lot of beating for pure aesthetic brilliance, imagination and precision. It was the work of a genius. It was the work of the best player in England and the best player in the world after those two statistical freaks Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi. Brendan Rodgers believes Suarez breathes the same rarefied air as those two players. Last night that was a position difficult to argue with.

Suarez is roundly disliked by anyone outside of Anfield who doesn’t posses a Uruguayan passport and he is usually overlooked when it comes to people discussing the elite footballers on the planet. His absence from the Champions League hinders him, of course. In truth, Liverpool hinder him, for he hasn’t won trophies recently like Franck Ribery, Arjen Robben or Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Those who watch him regularly know, though. They know that they wouldn’t swap him for any other player in world football outside of La Liga’s dynamic duo Ronaldo and Messi.

Suarez is not as refined as Messi and Zlatan nor is he as powerful and quick as Ronaldo and Bale. He is though, completely unique. Take the way he dribbles, for example. It is like no one else in the game. So often the ball seems destined to leave his control only for him to wrest it back with a bobble or three. It’s not luck, it’s determination, awareness and anticipation. He’s a step ahead of those trying to stop him. No player in the world embarasses defenders with the number of nutmegs that Suarez does. Those nutmegs aren’t for show either, they are simply his weapon of choice when it comes to beating people. He isn’t blessed with searing pace, nor is he a great exponent of the step over. Going around players is difficult without such gifts so he simply chooses to go through them.  By hook or by crook he gets in positions to shoot and his finishing is now no longer in question. His 30 goals last season have been added to with 13 league strikes in just 9 appearances this term. The Premier League is witnessing a special, special footballer at the peak of his powers.

As he left the pitch last night after illuminating Anfield once more, 40,000 people stood up and rightly acknowledged a masterclass. Those in the crowd who saw Rush, Fowler, Owen, Torres, Keegan, Dalglish and even Roger Hunt and Ian St John clapped Suarez off the pitch. In their heads they may have been thinking what Robbie Fowler articulated on Match of the Day:

'This fella might just be the best of the lot.'

Hodgson: Big Mouth Strikes Again

In a week when plenty of Liverpool supporters have been down on their manager Brendan Rodgers after their team’s pitiful capitulation against Hull City, Roy Hodgson has stepped in to offer a helping hand to the Northern Irishman by diverting fans’ ire away from their acting manager back on to the former incumbent of the Liverpool hotseat.

It seems as though every time Roy Hodgson dares to broach a subject of anything related to Liverpool Football Club his foot speedily races up to his mouth. As if his previous inane ramblings and underwhelming actions when he was in charge of the club hadn’t evoked enough disdain on Merseyside, the leader of the English national side has done it again in an interview about striker Daniel Sturridge.

The England manager has come out and publicly admitted that he played Sturridge for a full  90 minutes in a recent friendly match despite knowing that the forward wasn’t fully fit and therefore at risk of picking up an injury by playing. Said Roy:

"I suppose you could argue we did put his resolve to the test. I might have been guilty of that but I don't apologise for it. I am delighted he did get out there, even though he maybe didn't feel 100%, because that means in the future I will know I can trust him in an England team and he is not going to be playing when he feels like it – he is going to be playing when he's fit."

Hodgson just doesn't know when to be quiet

The fact that a national team manager would come out and publicly state that he would risk a player picking up an injury in a meaningless friendly as some sort of test of that player’s commitment is, frankly, little short of a joke. Any injury can have profound ramifications for players. Missing games can lead to them losing their place for their club side. It can lead to further injuries, loss of form or a downturn in confidence. In Sturridge’s case, his exertions for England cost him his starting place in a crucial Merseyside derby. This is a player who has suffered multiple injuries throughout his career and who has been playing at less than 100% all season long. Apparently this matters little to Hodgson and Sturridge proving his commitment (or ‘resolve’ to use Roy’s own words) circumvents such facts.

Hodgson went on to mention in his interview that Sturridge has missed several England games while he has been manager of the national team presumably as some kind of justification for his doubts over the player’s commitment (sorry Roy, ‘resolve’). That is absurd. Sturridge missed pretty much all of Liverpool’s pre-season through injury (because of an injury sustained while playing for Hodgson in a post season friendly match). He was unable to take to the field for his country against Chile (just four days prior to playing against Germany) because he was injured. It’s not as if the striker’s Mother has been writing notes to get him out of P.E on a regular basis, he’s had genuine problems and has required periods of rest wherever possible to keep him playing football.

There is little doubt that Brendan Rodgers wouldn’t have played the striker as much as he has done had Luis Suarez not been banned at the beginning of the league campaign. Liverpool were desperate to get off to a good start and needed Sturridge. He stepped up, played despite not being fully fit and fired Liverpool up the table. That was a risk worth taking because the consequences would have been significant had Sturridge not played and won Liverpool so many points. The same cannot be said of a friendly match against Germany’s reserve team.

Hodgson also made the strange claim that Sturridge needed to play against the Germans because there is only one more international meet up before the World Cup begins and therefore presumably he needed Sturridge on the pitch or the player wouldn’t have been guaranteed to start/be in the world cup squad for England. Absolute rubbish. If Roy Hodgson honestly believes that playing injured for 90 minutes against a German reserve team was necessary for Sturridge to stake his claim for the England number 9 shirt this summer then he’s out of his mind.

Sturridge will be out for between 6-8 weeks

Sturridge and Wayne Rooney are comfortably England’s best two strikers. Sturridge hasn’t stopped scoring since he joined Liverpool in January of this year and is one goal behind the Premier League’s top goalscorer Sergio Aguero. He’s not a 19 year old kid who has put a few good games together and earned his first international call up. Everyone knows how Sturridge plays and what he offers. If Hodgson wasn’t confident picking the top scoring English forward in the Premier League over the likes of Rickie Lambert, Danny Welbeck or Jermain Defoe then one has to question how the hell he became a manager in the first place. To suggest that without 90 minutes of pained toil against Germany that Sturridge’s England place would have been in jeopardy is absurd or simply disingenuous.

Of course, managers will always want their best players on the pitch and that’s probably why Hodgson made Sturridge play that inconsequential match. Friendly or not, he wanted to win against the Germans and Sturridge was the best forward he could have picked. Sturridge ambled through the game, clearly nowhere near his best and of course has subsequently had to miss out on starting the Merseyside derby for his club before picking up an injury in training a few days later.

The injury he suffered was to his ankle, not his thigh which he had been struggling with when England played Germany. The point here though is not that Roy Hodgson injured Daniel Sturridge, it’s that he risked injuring him for no good reason when he knew the potential consequences.

A manager in Hodgson’s position should not then be boasting in public about putting a player through some stone age test of 'resolve' that could have adversely affected his fitness and career, not to mention his club’s chances of success. Sturridge has a history of niggling injuries, hasn’t been fully fit all season and could have done with that 2 week rest. Instead Hodgson risked the striker’s fitness and then went on to tell the world about how unapologetic he was for gambling with the player, astonishingly stating that English players "are better [off] getting injured now," rather than in the summer. What kind of buffoon comes out and says such things? Would Roy have agreed with such a ridiculous statement when he was a club manager? Would he have made such a statement had Sturridge been playing for his good friend Alex Ferguson?

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by this ridiculous public admission though. Hodgson’s greatest weakness is running his mouth and not knowing when to shut up. He says the wrong things at the wrong times. Then he says some more wrong things. Whether it’s hailing the worst Liverpool performance at Goodison Park in a decade as his team’s ‘best performance of the season’ or criticising Liverpool fans for marching against two parasites running their club into the dirt, Hodgson never ceases to amaze the people on Merseyside who grew to know and loathe him. To the rest of the country, Liverpool supporters were harsh on Roy and didn’t give him a chance. The fact is that, taking the dour and unsuccessful brand of football that he had the Reds playing out of it for a second, Roy talked rubbish. He offended people and patronised them. His comments made no sense and only served to piss people off. Seemingly little has changed.