Playing Both Sturridge And Suarez

Watching the first sixty minutes against Tottenham (before Joe Allen came on), and the entire game at Southampton, it had me worrying that Daniel Sturridge and Luis Suarez possibly shouldn’t be playing together as a strike partnership. The game at Aston Villa has me sure of it. I’m not saying that they don’t form an effective partnership, and this thought isn’t based on our team in attack, I worry how exposed it leaves us.

Luis Suarez is a genius footballer, he can – and does – do things that normal players wouldn’t even dream of, but he’s not a midfielder. He’s a striker, so if you put him in the ‘number 10’ role, he’s not going to do much defending, and that puts huge pressure on the two men behind him – most likely to be Gerrard and Lucas. Both Spurs and Southampton dominated the middle of the park against Liverpool, mainly because they outnumbered the midfield, and that was because our ‘two’ never became a ‘three’.

Against Aston Villa, Liverpool looked much more compact in midfield, and looked good in transition, which was not the case in the Southampton game. Jordan Henderson continues to shine, and despite the shaky start to his Liverpool career, he’s developed into a very good Premier League midfielder, and Liverpool looked much better with him in the advanced midfield role than they did with Suarez playing there.

There’s no blame attached to Luis Suarez here, he’s not a midfielder, so he’s not going to perform like one, and Liverpool wouldn’t want him to do so anyway. In fact, it’s not really a case of blaming anyone, it’s just that we’ve tried an idea and it looks like it won’t work well. For an hour against Spurs, and for the whole game against Southampton, you could have driven a lorry through the gaps in the Liverpool midfield, such was the extent to how open it looked.

Liverpool look much, much better with a three man midfield, whether it be a ‘two and a one’, or a – hang on while I flip the triangle – ‘one and a two’, and that currently (with Joe Allen injured) looks certain to be made up of Steven Gerrard, Jordan Henderson and Lucas.

So the question remains, how does Brendan Rodgers go about getting his £12m signing, Daniel Sturridge, into the team? After all, he didn’t buy him to sit on the bench.

Well, the first possibility is that Rodgers could deploy Suarez in a wider role in his front three, meaning he’d have to drop either Phillipe Coutinho or Stewart Downing, both of whom have played very well recently. Another option is to drop one of his midfield three, move Coutinho to the tip of the triangle and deploy Suarez out wide, as Coutinho looks more industrious, and has already showed willingness to fulfil his defensive duties. In either situation, Luis Suarez will be playing wide, and it’s tough to know if he suits that role. He can play there, obviously, because he’s really good at football! However, are Liverpool getting the best out of him there? Probably not.

Another option is to play Sturridge wide right, where he often featured for Chelsea. Again, I have no doubts in the ability of Sturridge to do well on the right, but it does seem like Rodgers would be putting a square peg in a round hole if he chose that option, after all, he signed Sturridge as a striker, plus Stewart Downing is key to Rodgers’ formation currently, and his form justifies his inclusion in the team.

Anybody who listens to the TBTTalks podcast will know that my personal preference would be for Liverpool to go to a 5-3-2 formation, which transforms to a 3-5-2 when in attack. There would be no need to play wingers as both José Enrique and Glen Johnson would be responsible for providing width, and with three centre backs, they – along with two of the midfield three – could be far more adventurous in attack, knowing that they’d have the insurance policy of Lucas and a further three defenders behind them. This would also allow Daniel Agger to feel more comfortable bringing the ball out of the back, which he is really good at doing, and he’d be able to make the Jan Vertonghan-like runs that we’d all love to see from him.

Coutinho could be deployed at the front of the midfield three, where he’d be the link man to the two man strike force of Sturridge and Suarez. That attacking three would be very difficult to contain, as the movement of all three is very, very good. Defenders would struggle to pick them all up, and with advancing full-backs and Steven Gerrard adding to the attack, Liverpool would look very strong going forwards, while having cover behind them for the moments when they lose the ball.

So, in summary, what’s the best (in my opinion) way of getting Sturridge and Suarez into the same team? Play 5-3-2. Easy!