Its been a busy month in the world of Liverpool Football Club.
The January transfer window has finally slammed shut and we have to be pleased with the business we managed to conclude; signing striker, Daniel Sturridge and playmaker, Philippe Coutinho. Sturridge was signed at the start of January from Chelsea for £12m and he’s already proving to be worth every penny of that transfer fee, scoring 4 goals in 6 games and showing an understanding with fellow forward, Luis Suarez.
We made our second purchase in the market last week by signing Brazilian, Philippe Coutinho, from Inter Milan for a fee in the region of £8.5m. It will be interesting to see how Brendan Rodgers chooses to use him, will he be the ‘Number 10’ that’s widely been spoken about, after all that is the squad number he’s been given, or will he be used as a wide player with the licence to roam inside. All will be revealed soon enough, but the 20-year-old needs time to adapt to our league, it could take time for him to acclimatise here and I’m sure our South American contingent, fellow Brazilian Lucas Leiva, Uruguayan duo Luis Suarez and Sebastian Coates, will help him settle in.
One target that did slip through the net during this window however, was Blackpool’s Thomas Ince. At the beginning of the window we lodged a bid of around £4m that we deemed acceptable for his services, as we had secured a 35% sell on fee if he was to be sold by Blackpool in the future, having developed him at our Academy. But as we found out over the Charlie Adam saga in 2011 in both the January and summer transfer windows, Blackpool chairman, Karl Oyston is a difficult man to do business with and talks broke down between the clubs and it brought disappointment to both the club and the player himself. I fully expect us to go back in for Ince during the summer and think he will be a good addition to the squad, if we can hopefully agree on a realistic price.
Our most notable outgoings consisted of high earner, Joe Cole leaving to return to his boyhood club, West Ham United and also the on loan Turkish midfielder, Nuri Sahin going back to one of his former clubs, Borussia Dortmund. It was a shame it never worked out here for Sahin, he’s a good footballer but seemed a bit too lightweight and lacked a yard of pace for me, I don’t think he’ll be missed much, but I hope he rekindles his career as he seemed like a good professional.
Enough of the transfer window though and on to the most important thing, games of football. We’ve just had two tough away games in the space of 5 days and got two points from them, should really have been maximum six points and although it was good to avoid defeat in both the games against Arsenal and Manchester City, its tinged with disappointment as in both games we lead only to be pegged back to 2-2 scorelines.
The Arsenal game we surrended a 2 goal cushion, which was very frustrating, but the performance level was there for all to see and that carried on at City on Sunday, as we put in a superb display which was one of our best of the campaign, showing great spirit to come from a goal behind to take the lead, only for a mistake from Pepe Reina costing us a much deserved victory. But it has to be said that, yes Pepe had a rush of blood by coming out as he did, but the finish from Sergio Aguero was sublime and we’ve just got to take it on the chin and move on.
There are promising signs that this team is coming together nicely, progress is being made in my opinion and we are still in with an outside chance of Champions League qualification. There’s 5 clubs going for 2 places, at present an out of form Chelsea and Tottenham occupy those spots but Arsenal, Everton and Liverpool are not too far away. My view is that we require 10 wins from our last 13 league games, which is a big ask but it’s not unachievable, as most of our tougher games that we have left are at Anfield against Tottenham, Chelsea and Everton, all of which are 6 pointers and no matter what, we have to believe we can do it, fans and players alike. As the saying goes ‘Believe and Achieve’
The first of those remaining games is at Anfield on Monday evening against West Bromwich Albion, it will be an opportunity for us to avenge the shock opening day 3-0 defeat to them at The Hawthorns, everything went wrong that day. We know Steve Clarke will have them well-drilled, as that’s his forte, but young forward Romelu Lukaku is a big powerful presence upfront for them and will need to be dealt with. But this is a game we have to get 3pts from and I’m confident that we will, so my prediction for the game is: Liverpool 2-0 West Brom, with Luis Suarez notching both.
