An emphatic away day victory at the DW Stadium against Wigan last Saturday; a win that kept up our momentum of winning games and sets us up nicely going into the final months of the season. There was plenty of positives to take from the game with new Brazilian playmaker, Coutinho, showing his quality by assisting two of the goals, for Stewart Downing and Luis Suárez. He was a little magician in the final third, something that reminded me of a certain Luis Garcia with his silky touches and an eye for a key pass. Its fair to say that even though its only early days in his Liverpool career, at £8.5m, the boy from Brazil looks a snip. His linkup play with Suárez, Gerrard and Sturridge is a joy to watch and long may it continue.
It also goes without saying just how good Luis Suárez is, as he notched his second hat trick of the season, taking his Premier League goals tally to twenty-one and became top scorer in his quest for the Golden Boot. He is now two goals ahead of his main rival, Robin Van Persie, and it would be a great personal accolade for the Uruguayan to achieve. We all know that Suárez is the best player in the Premier League today, but I wouldn’t expect him to be awarded player of the year due to the politics in and around football, so the Golden Boot award should be his main aim – something he isn’t relying on anyone else for, but himself.
The player of the year award is most likely going to go to Tottenham’s Gareth Bale, which is quite ironic really, as he has been booked for diving more times this season than Suárez; however it is the Uruguayan that takes the brunt of the criticism But to be fair, Bale has been outstanding this season as well and he’s a player we’ll certainly need to keep tabs on this coming weekend when we face Tottenham at Anfield.
Hopefully we will see the return of striker Daniel Sturridge, on Sunday. He took a knock in training last week prior to the Wigan match, but has returned to training and the suggestions are that he will be ready to return. I want to see that trio of Coutinho, Suárez and Sturridge in action once more. It was something which worked so well against Swansea in our last home game, but it will be in differing circumstances against an in-form Tottenham side, who are coming off a North London derby victory over their neighbours Arsenal, putting them firmly in the box seat for Champions League qualification. The bonus for us is that we have a full weeks preparation for the encounter, whereas they faced a midweek Europa League tie against Inter Milan – and although they romped to victory, fatigue will no doubt play a part.
I have looked at our remaining fixtures and have come to the conclusion that its not an impossibility that we could go unbeaten between now and May, potentially even winning the majority of our games, and as I mentioned last week, its all about picking up as many points as we can and seeing where we end up.We have no other distractions to play with us, so there’s no excuses for tiredness and a strong finish to the league campaign is a must.
I am confident we can beat Tottenham on Sunday: I think we will have too much for them in an attacking sense. Sure they’ve got Gareth Bale, but we have Luis Suárez and I am going to predict a 3-1 win for Liverpool, with goals from Suárez, Coutinho and a Steven Gerrard penalty.
