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Story of the Season
Brendan Rodgers arrived at Liverpool after the sacking of Kenny Dalglish with a remit to reinvigorate the ‘pass and move is the Liverpool groove’ ideology that made them so very successful in the 70s and 80s. Liverpool had finished second with the highest ever runners up total as recently as 2009 but had since fallen out of the spot as one of the locked in ‘big four’ in to the lower top half of the table. Rodgers was the man chosen to bring back the glory days.
He started inauspiciously, carrying on the appallingly wasteful transfer policy that got Liverpool in to trouble in the first place. His summer signings of Joe Allen and Fabio Borini yielded little and the club took criticism for missing out on Clint Dempsey. However, there were signs of improvement in January with the signing of Daniel Sturridge who scored at nearly a goal a game and the fabulous Philippe Coutinho who looks like a megastar in the making.
As Rodgers began to affirm his strategies and systems, the team showed flashes of what they could be capable of. However, the main issue was inconsistency, caused by a lack of quality in the squad. The attack and defence took turns to shine. Nothing much in the cups either, including a humiliation at Oldham in the FA Cup.
Although, on paper their seventh place in the league was a let down, it was a pretty solid bedding-in year for Rodgers.
Major Signings
Joe Allen (Swansea, £15m) – Allen was brought in to be ‘Liverpool’s Xavi’. He knew him well from their time at Swansea and felt that he would be an ideal foil to Lucas and Steven Gerrard for his three-man midfield. His very own Xavi, Busquets and Iniesta. It didn’t quite work out like that. He did fine, but with Rodger’s decision to go to 4-2-3-1 meant that he lost out in game time and seems to be a squad player now.Grade: D- They paid £10m more than they should have. This is, for example, twice as much as Coutinho cost. He’s a tidy little player but the price is like an anchor, weighing down heavily on him.
Fabio Borini (Roma, £10.5m) – The joke when these two moves were made was, for Allen and Borini, cue Downing and Carroll. Too much money spent on players who were at best the same level as what they had. Borini has been a total bust. Although this had partly been because of his constant injury, he just hasn’t shown anything to believe in looking forward to the next season. He’s not even technically gifted or subtle- two qualities Liverpool are stocking up on up front. Firmly behind many others in the pecking order now.Grade: E Far too much money for a player who in no way fits Rodgers’ system.Daniel Sturridge (Chelsea, £12m) – Sturridge has always had talent but lost out at Chelsea because of inconsistency. At Liverpool he has scored 12 goals in 15 games, and yet is still inconsistent. Some of the goals he has scored have been wonderful, he has shown a healthy rapport with Coutinho and Suarez. Is he a horse to bet on long term? He’s just as likely to score 3 in a game as he is to not score for 3 games. This perhaps explains the signing of Iago Aspas. Still, Rodgers is getting the best out of him.Grade: B+ He’s done really well so far. The question is, as he cost this much money, and with the probable sale of Suarez on the way he is pretty much their frontline striker. This time next year, if he’s scored 25 important goals I’ll make this an A. If he’s stuck in a pattern of not showing up randomly it will be lower, so this seems fair.
Philippe Coutinho (Liverpool, £8.5m) – Coutinho has been a sensation since being signed from Inter Milan. He has made a better start to life in England than Mata, Silva, Cazorla and Kagawa in his first few months. All the more impressive because he arrived in January. He started as a 60-minute player out wide, and finished it by playing every minute as a pure ‘number 10? behind Sturridge. He’s got everything. Absolutely everything. The full range of passing, pace, goals, movement, directness, imagination and the ability to make others better.Grade: A++ Already one of the top players in the league, if he plays all year at number 10 he could easily win Young Player of the Year next season, maybe even the full award. Liverpool are doing their best to surround him with talent which will only help.
Overall: C A tale of two windows. Summer – fail. Winter – success, potentially huge success.
The Good: Liverpool are starting to build a team to be enthusiastic about again. The link up play between Coutinho, Sturridge and Luis Suarez was wonderful to watch at times. Suarez had the best season of his career on the pitch. Lucas and Gerrard looked an excellent pairing in their new roles in the tweaked system, Gerrard in particular had a bounce back campaign and made my Team of the Year. The played some really stylish stuff and also showed an ability to keep teams out. Rodgers also blooded academy graduates Andre Wisdom, Raheem Sterling, Suso and Jordan Ibe over the season, the first time they’ve done so in years. They have a young core of technical players. It’s all promise so far but with the right signings and a full commitment to Rodgers’ technicians they could be one for the neutrals.
The Bad: Luis Suarez brings more shame to the club. Over the last couple of years, Liverpool have become a very dislikeable club due to various PR disasters, boring football and comically bad transfer work. Rodgers has started to alter the latter criticisms but the club was plagued by the first once more. The bite incident with Branislav Ivanovic was absurd and brought shame to the club. This is, remember, the player whose face adorned t-shirts for the club in warm ups in 2011/12 whilst he was being investigated for racially abusing Patrice Evra. That does not look good now as he tries to force his way out of the club.
Key Moment: Newcastle 0-6 Liverpool The week before the Luis Suarez-incident and the club fighting fires, Liverpool were seen as a one-man team for the whole season with Suarez stealing the show time and again. They were without their talisman, away at dangerous Newcastle at the intimidating St. James’ Park, and they smashed Newcastle. This was the first game that Coutinho was given the keys to the team and he was outstanding. It made Liverpool fans believe that what was after all a season of transition, was worthwhile. It had tangible benefits. It was a tease of what could be to come, which was the entire point of the whole campaign.
Star Man: Luis Suarez On the pitch he was outstanding. He was involved in over 40 goals in all competitions, both scoring and making them. The key was that he scored important goals, and he took games away from opponents so quickly that they didn’t know what had hit them. Norwich and QPR were hit for quickfire hattricks and he scored away at Man City and Chelsea. Consistent all season, he shook off the wastefulness of previous campaigns.
What needs to be done in the summer? Quite a lot, or not a lot. It depends on who they sell. They’ve brought in Iago Aspas to play alongside the other forwards, not to replace Suarez. If they sell the Uruguayan they will of course need to replace him, mostly likely with another forward rather than striker.
The other big area of concern is the central defence. Agger and Skrtel weren’t very good last year and Jamie Carragher has retired. Kolo Toure has been signed but he’s no better than a back up. They may also need to replace Pepe Reina if Barcelona come calling. The key thing is to keep up what they were doing since January- not wasting money on average players.
Season Grade: C No deep cup runs and seventh place isn’t exactly a roaring success. They wasted a lot of money in the market again and were plagued by yet more Luis Suarez controversy. However, the footballing philosophy of Brendan Rodgers looks to be settling in and they have some lovely players to watch. The moves for Sturridge and particularly Coutinho could be looked back on as pivotal in years to come.
