As of today, Liverpool Football Club sit at the top of the Barclays Premier League. They have won 3 out of their first 4, have conceded only 2 goals and have the luxury of not fielding their top scorer from last season yet. Things are looking very rosy in the Liverpool garden right now. Of course there will be those who say, ” it’s only 4 games”, “there’s a long way to go”, “you can’t judge the league until at least 10 games in”. I myself say the last phrase but, as a Liverpool fan, it’s good to see the old bird back on it’s perch at the top of the league.It has been far too long.
Yes, we are a work in progress and yes our second half display’s this season have not been great, none more so than on Monday night away at Swansea but, we are still unbeaten, we will improve and for a change teams are trying to catch us rather than us constantly chasing the teams above us.
Rodgers has masterminded our best start since the 1994-1995 season.
So, is this the real deal? Or are we flattering to deceive? Let me say this now; I do not think we will win the Barclays Premier League for at least the next 5 years. But modern football now offers clubs huge rewards for finishing 2nd, 3rd and 4th and it has been a long time since not only did we qualify for the Champions League but that we actually looked like challenging for it.
For us to challenge for the league we first have to challenge for the top 4 positions in the league.
As all fans will be aware we have not since the 2008/2009 season finished in the top 4 of English football. In that time we have changed managers 3 times, spent and wasted the better part of £150million pounds in transfers, wages and pay-offs to players and staff alike and of course we have had new American owners. We have gone backwards in a big way. What has also happened is that teams around us have grown stronger, invested far more shrewdly than us and we have found ourselves down and around the 7th and 8th position in the Barclays Premier League.
To get us back to where we all feel we belong it was going to take something special to happen, we don’t have the mega rich owners like Manchester City and Chelsea, we don’t have the stadium and match day income like Manchester United or Arsenal and neither do we have the Champions League revenue like those four clubs.
What we do have though is a manger and owners who both share the same vision. They both see that there is another way to be successful.
Now i’m not just saying this because we are top of the league right now and we had a pretty successful transfer window this Summer. I am saying it because for the first time in a long time you can see the owners and manager of Liverpool FC pulling in the same direction.
The way John W Henry and Brendan Rodgers both stood firm over the Luis Suarez saga over the summer shows that they both want the same thing and that is Liverpool Football Club to be successful now and in the future. They know the best way to do that is by keeping the clubs best players and adding to that.
What we also have in our favour is stability.
For the first time in three years we are not starting from scratch. We are not letting a new manager and staff bed in and get their feet under the table. Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City and Everton all finished above us last season but all have changed their managers in the off season. Even though Jose has gone back to Chelsea and Manchester City have spent big again, it will take time for those mangers and players to become familiar with each other. We have already seen Manchester City come unstuck this season.
Stability gives you many things, it allows the manager to plan long term, it lets the players relax and concentrate on their performance without looking over their shoulder and worrying if the new manager fancies them or not. It helps sell players the vision you have for the club and it helps build a team spirit.
There were signs towards the end of last season that Rodgers was building something impressive. The team were gelling and working hard for each other. This season though it appears to have gone to another level. Look at the spirit amongst the players and staff, the reaction to Simon Mignolet’s wonderful penalty save against Stoke, the team celebrating with Rodgers when we score a goal, the way we refused to buckle under incessant Swansea pressure on Monday evening. You cannot put a price on that. As Kolo Toure has said, ” a player will win you a match, a team will win you trophies”.
Right now we look like a team that does not know how to lose and if you look at our results since January 1st 2013, you can see why.
Rodgers has to take all the credit for creating that atmosphere at Anfield, one of his favourite sayings is ” I will fight for my life for this football club” and he does. The players have bought into that and we are now seeing the steel that Rodgers talked about when being interviewed by The Anfield Wrap, whilst on tour.
That’s not to say Rodgers has not made mistakes, because he has. He learns from them though, he is happy to change formations and players in an attempt to get the right result.
When Rodgers took over he was known as a 4-3-3 manager, a manager who’s philosophy was death by football. He said it himself on numerous occasions. However, at Liverpool we have seen a change from that approach. This season we have played a 4-2-2-2 when in possession and then changed to a 4-4-1-1 when we have lost possession. We have gotten ourselves in front during the first half of games and then sat back, played with 2 banks of four and seen the game out.
In that regard you could say that Rodgers has learnt from the master of closing games out, his old mentor at Chelsea; Jose Mourinho. You could also point to Mourinho’s influence when you see the new found team spirit around Anfield and the squad. The performance against Manchester United summed up the new mentality perfectly. It was steel rather than style. I commented after the game that that win reminded me of the way Rafa would set up his teams in the big games at home and in Europe and we all know how good his record was in those games.
Rodgers has also been smart in the transfer market, he wants winners, he wants players with a point to prove. He is almost looking at other clubs for their rejects, their cast offs. When looking at the deals we have done since January you could call them Rodgers’ Rejects!
Players who have fallen out of favour at the clubs they are at, players who want a fresh start and have a point to prove. Players who are desperate to be loved and to play football. We have Phil Coutinho and Daniel Sturridge, both joined having not played much for Inter Milan and Chelsea respectively. How much would those clubs pay to have them back now? A lot more than the £20million or so we paid for them both.
Kolo Toure has come in on a free transfer and is a cult hero already. His performances, his enthusiasm and the lift he seems to have given everyone is incredible. He looks like he has been part of Liverpool for as long as Steven Gerrard has and Jamie Carragher had been before retirement.
Victor Moses and Aly Cissokho have joined on loan from Chelsea and Valencia respectively after both those players found their careers stalling, would you bet against Brendan Rodgers turning their fortunes around and getting the best out of them? I certainly would not. He has done it with Jordan Henderson, Daniel Sturridge, Phil Coutinho, Jose Enrique and to a certain extent Steven Gerrard and Kolo Toure. They all look reborn under Rodgers. Add in Sakho, who has left his boyhood club PSG with the aim of playing more first team football and Rodgers has very cleverly strengthened an area of weakness last season with player who is desperate to play football and who will work hard for the team.
At the moment, everything is sweet and I feel that this season will be one that we will all remember as the year Liverpool re-emerged as a top team within the Premier League. We will sit back and thank Fenway Sports Group for believing in Brendan Rodgers. We will know that together they have built the foundations of a something new and that this is not a false dawn.
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